IMC 2024 Echizen submission

Submitted to the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference held in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture — the historic center of washi papermaking — this print continues Neal's sustained engagement with water as both subject and metaphor. Given her three-decade preoccupation with rivers, tides, and currents, the image likely renders flowing water through layered tonal passages rather than literal depiction, employing the bokashi gradations that mokuhanga uniquely affords when pigment is brushed directly onto the block before pulling. Printed on Echizen kozo washi using baren pressure, the work would carry the deep absorbency and fibrous translucence that distinguish handmade Japanese paper from Western alternatives. The IMC submission context places Neal within an international community of contemporary mokuhanga practitioners who have adapted the traditional ukiyo-e technique to abstract and conceptual ends. As co-founder of the Kentler International Drawing Space, Neal has been instrumental in building this transnational network, and her own prints reflect the dialogue between the Edo-period water-based woodblock tradition and a Brooklyn-based studio practice rooted in observation of the Hudson, the East River, and the working waterfronts of Red Hook.