Asa (Morning)

The Japanese title 朝 simply names the time of day; like Yoshikawa's other one-word titles, it functions as a mood label rather than a description of subject matter. An abstract Asa translates the idea of morning into chromatic and compositional terms — perhaps lighter or cooler hues, more open spacing, a sense of emergence — rather than depicting a sunrise or a streetscape. As a multi-block mokuhanga, the print is constructed through successive impressions from individually carved cherry-wood blocks, each registering one or two colors via kentō marks. Bokashi — graduated wiping of pigment on the block before pulling — is a candidate technique for evoking the diffuse light of early morning, though Yoshikawa generally prefers crisp, saturated color fields to atmospheric effects. The image sits within her larger commitment to non-representational mokuhanga, an approach that distinguishes her from much of the contemporary Japanese print community working in landscape, kacho-e, or bijin-ga modes. Her presence in the Nagoya–Newcastle exchange since 1999 has been a consistent international platform for Japanese abstract woodblock practice.