IMC 2024 Echizen submission

Created for the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference (IMC), this print was made for the Echizen-related portfolio tied to the triennial gathering, which convenes mokuhanga practitioners from across the globe. Echizen, in Fukui Prefecture, is one of Japan's longstanding centers of washi production, and prints made for such exchanges are typically pulled on kozo-based sheets selected for their long-fiber strength and tolerance for multiple registrations without distortion. Mack-Watkins's mokuhanga practice pairs water-based pigments applied with the baren on traditional Japanese supports with imagery drawn from her Southern American upbringing, often centering Black girlhood, vernacular dress, and questions of identity, beauty, and conformity. Conference and Echizen-paper submissions tend to be small-edition works that demonstrate an artist's command of the flat color fields, bokashi gradations, and visible woodgrain that define the medium. The piece situates Mack-Watkins within a generation of printmakers — represented in collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture — using the mokuhanga vocabulary to address subjects beyond its Edo-period origins.