Nami (Waves) (69/85)

Printed in an edition of 85, this oban mokuhanga takes the Japanese word nami (waves) as both title and subject. Joshua Rome addresses the movement of water through layered water-based pigments on washi paper, using the mokuhanga process to build wave forms from accumulated transparent color passes rather than from the bold outlines that defined wave imagery in classical ukiyo-e. The result is closer to the experience of watching actual waves than to the iconic graphic representations established by artists like Hokusai. Each printing pass adds another layer of aqueous movement, the water-based pigments themselves behaving on the damp paper with some of the fluidity of the waves they depict. Rome's treatment acknowledges the weight of the wave motif in Japanese visual culture while finding a personal idiom that owes more to observed nature than to art-historical quotation.