Untitled

An untitled mokuhanga print by Kingston-based artist Idris Veitch, this work belongs to a body of prints produced through the traditional Japanese water-based woodblock method. The technique requires the artist to carve separate blocks for each color area and to brush nori paste and pigment directly onto the block surface before printing — a process distinct from oil-based Western relief printing in its capacity for translucent layering and [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation. Without a descriptive title, the print invites reading on its formal terms: surface texture from the [baren](/glossary/baren), the inherent grain of the cherrywood block transferred to the [washi](/glossary/washi) sheet, and the particular tonal qualities that water-based pigments produce when absorbed into dampened paper. Veitch's practice, documented through the Mokuhanga Magic international network, represents the diffusion of mokuhanga into Caribbean artistic life. His position as one of the rare practitioners of the technique in Jamaica places this print within a broader twenty-first-century movement that has carried the medium far beyond its historical Japanese centers.