Shifting Tides

Darwin Harbour has one of the largest tidal ranges in Australia, with waters rising and falling several metres between neap and spring tides, exposing and submerging vast mudflats and mangrove margins twice daily. This mokuhanga print likely captures the visual evidence of tidal movement: exposed sand banks with ribbed surface textures, the waterline's irregular recession through mangrove roots, the colour contrast between wet and drying sediment. Gribbin's layered printing technique is well suited to rendering the multiple zones that shifting tides reveal — deep water, tidal shallows, wet flat, dry bank — each with distinct light quality and surface character. [Bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations across these horizontal bands can compress a day's tidal cycle into a single image. The print situates itself within a long tradition of Japanese [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) depicting specific coastal geographies, here transposed to the distinctive tidal ecology of Australia's Top End.