My Home

My Home (わたしのおうち), a 39 × 58 cm mezzotint printed on gampi paper, takes its title from the affectionate おうち form, suggesting a personal rather than purely architectural relationship to the depicted dwelling. The landscape format accommodates either a wide interior view or a frontal building elevation, both common subjects in contemporary Japanese intaglio treatments of domestic space. The mezzotint technique begins with uniform plate roughening by rocker to establish a dense burr capable of holding solid black ink; the image is then drawn by burnishing and scraping to reduce ink retention in selected areas, working additively from dark toward light. This produces the velvety blacks and continuous tonal gradations that distinguish mezzotint from line-based intaglio such as etching or engraving. Gampi paper, with its thin, smooth, slightly lustrous surface, registers the full tonal range and supports fine detail without the absorbency of thicker washi. The work was selected for the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025, placing Hatanaka within the principal Tokyo-area juried exhibition circuit and marking an early-career entry into the wider cohort of Hiroshima City University-trained intaglio printmakers.