Pine 4

"Pine 4" belongs to the early sequence of Manami Ito's Pine prints, a group that established the layered drypoint approach now characteristic of her practice. The image likely shows a pine viewed at relatively close range — perhaps an isolated specimen from a temple garden, framed so that the bark texture, the radial structure of branches, and the dense bunches of needles can each be developed through distinct registers of mark-making. Drypoint demands that every tonal value be earned through the cumulative incision of fine lines into the plate, with the displaced burr holding additional ink to produce the velvety blacks visible in the deepest shadows of foliage. Ito's commitment to a single, slow, hand-drawn medium aligns her work with a contemporary Japanese intaglio practice that values the visible record of decision and time, in counterpoint to faster digital and photographic image-making.