IMC 2024 Echizen submission

Lee's submission to the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference (IMC) exhibition in Echizen places this print within a juried showcase of contemporary water-based woodblock practice held in Fukui Prefecture, a region tied to washi production for over a millennium. Selected IMC works are typically printed on Echizen kozo papers chosen for their tolerance of repeated baren impressions, and tend to demonstrate fluency with mokuhanga's core technical vocabulary: pigment bound with rice paste (nori), hand-cut cherry blocks registered via kento marks, and bokashi gradients drawn from a moistened block edge. As an American practitioner, Lee belongs to the cohort of North American artists who have adopted these methods—often after study in Japan or with mokuhanga-trained instructors—and applied them to contemporary subject matter rather than the meisho-e or bijin-ga genres of the historical ukiyo-e tradition. The juried selection process favors prints showing command of traditional technique while extending it beyond strict historical precedent, whether through abstraction, scale, or hybrid approaches combining mokuhanga with intaglio or relief methods. The specific composition of Lee's submission is not known from the title alone, but its inclusion situates the artist within the active international community sustaining mokuhanga practice in the 2020s.