Ashikari (The Thatch Cutters)

Ashikari, the Japanese term for thatch cutters, provides both the title and the human context for this oban mokuhanga print. Joshua Rome references the traditional rural labor of cutting and gathering reeds or grasses used for thatching roofs, a practice that persists in some Japanese villages and carries deep associations with the changing seasons and agrarian life. Rather than illustrating the activity literally, Rome filters the subject through his abstract sensibility, using layered water-based pigments to suggest the textures of cut grasses and the open landscapes where thatch-cutting takes place. The mokuhanga process, with its hand-carved cherry blocks and baren printing, connects Rome's contemporary practice to the same material traditions that the thatch cutters themselves represent, creating a thematic resonance between the art's subject and its means of production.