Pine 5

"Pine 5" continues Manami Ito's iterative study of the pine, a subject she has returned to since her undergraduate years at Kyoto City University of Arts. Tagged with Trees, the composition likely centers a single pine examined for its sculptural form rather than its place within a wider garden vista. The drypoint surface is built from thousands of short, overlapping lines, each cut directly into the copper with a hardened needle; the burr left along each line catches ink and prints with the soft, atmospheric quality that distinguishes drypoint from etching. Negative passages — sky, distant ground, quiet bark — are described not by ink but by the precise distribution of unmarked plate. Within the larger Pine series the numbering implies a working method closer to a sketchbook than a portfolio, with each plate testing a different angle on the same subject.