Garden Project - Wood, Paper and Water - Between Vertical and Horizon

Ida Shoichi (born 1941) is a Kyoto-based artist whose mokuhanga practice foregrounds the material properties of the woodblock print medium rather than conventional pictorial representation. This work, subtitled Between Vertical and Horizon, investigates the spatial and haptic relationships between upright natural structures—wood grain, timber, standing forms—and the horizontal plane of water and [washi](/glossary/washi) paper surface. Translucent washes of water-based pigment are layered to suggest material transformation and depth, emphasizing the inherent qualities of the woodblock process: compression, grain, the absorption of pigment into fiber. The print belongs to a broader body of conceptual work in which Ida treats the mokuhanga process itself as the subject, situating his practice in dialogue with both the Japanese printmaking tradition and postwar international Conceptual art.