Kamuy Yukar Ainup.tou tar moku ott

The title invokes "Kamuy Yukar," the epic divine songs of the Ainu people of Hokkaido and northern Japan, in which spirits speak through narrative chant. The print thus stands apart from much of Hayashi's intaglio practice in both medium and reference: a wood engraving rather than an etching, and rooted in the indigenous oral tradition of the northern islands rather than the elemental and philosophical motifs of his core series. Wood engraving — worked end-grain with fine burins — admits a precision of line closer to copperplate than to traditional ukiyo-e woodblock, and the choice signals Hayashi engaging a different graphic register for this subject. The work belongs to a smaller cohort of his prints that step outside the ongoing numbered sequences to address specific cultural or textual sources. It reflects the breadth of his output: while his core practice consists of sustained meditative sequences in etching, Hayashi has periodically produced focused single works in alternate media responding to particular texts or traditions, here drawing on a body of song that until recent decades existed almost entirely in oral form.