Homeland

Homeland is a mokuhanga print by American practitioner Christine Adame, working within the contemporary water-based woodblock tradition that has expanded internationally over the past two decades. The title suggests an engagement with themes of place, belonging, and cultural origin — subject matter common among contemporary mokuhanga artists who use the traditional Japanese technique to explore personal and diasporic narratives. Works of this scale and method typically employ multiple cherry or shina plywood blocks, with pigments hand-rubbed into dampened washi using a baren. The water-based nature of mokuhanga allows for soft tonal gradations through bokashi, lending itself to evocative atmospheric imagery rather than the sharp lines of oil-based relief printing. Adame's selection for the 2021 International Mokuhanga Conference juried exhibition in Nara situates this work within the current global moment for the medium, where American printmakers are using the technique to articulate distinctly non-Japanese subject matter while honoring the material traditions of nishiki-e printing developed in eighteenth-century Edo.