Random Composition

"Random Composition" sets the apparent disorder of its title against the high control of the etching medium. In Hamano's practice, "random" functions as a procedural premise rather than a formal description: the composition is generated by a rule or chance operation, then committed to the copper plate through a process that allows no retreat once the acid bites. The title aligns the work with the chance-based tradition that runs through her "by chance" series and connects her to a longer twentieth-century lineage — Arp, Cage, the post-war concrete printers — in which procedural generation produced compositions that retained visual order despite their non-deterministic origin. The square small-format plate keeps the field bounded, so even random distributions read as systems. The work fits within the geometric programme that placed Hamano in the 3rd PATinKyoto Print Art Triennale 2022 and that distinguishes her from the more figurative or painterly currents of contemporary Tokyo printmaking.