Dragon 11

Dragon 11 extends Hajime Namiki's mythological series, the eleventh numbered variation on the dragon (ryu) motif. The image likely presents a single serpentine form moving through cloud or vapor, drawing on the long Japanese tradition of dragon imagery seen in temple ceilings, scroll paintings, and earlier woodblock prints. Where ukiyo-e printmakers typically delineated dragons with strong contour and decisive line, Namiki tends toward atmospheric handling: bokashi-graduated grounds, layered color blocks, and softened edges built up through successive impressions on washi paper. The water-based pigments and baren-applied passages give the surface its characteristic luminosity. As a contemporary mokuhanga practitioner working in the sosaku-hanga lineage, Namiki carves and prints every block himself. The Dragon series sits somewhat apart from his more familiar tree and landscape subjects, but shares their compositional restraint—a single dominant form against a quiet field—and the iterative numbering that documents his repeated return to the same motif under varied conditions.