Pine 7

"Pine 7" falls within the early-to-middle stretch of Manami Ito's Pine series, where the artist consolidates her approach to the motif. The print likely centers a pine that occupies most of the picture plane, allowing detailed attention to the structural bend of its limbs and the textural distinction between trunk, branch, and needle mass. Drypoint suits this kind of close, descriptive looking: the steel needle drawn directly across the polished copper produces a line whose softness depends on how much burr is left intact, and Ito's prints typically retain a generous burr to produce dense, atmospheric blacks. There is no etched line, no aquatint, no second color — only the cumulative pressure of hand-drawn marks. Within her wider work, the Pine series functions as a long-form exercise in the disciplined observation that has shaped Japanese garden art for centuries, translated into a contemporary intaglio idiom.