Sound of the Snow

Sound of the Snow invokes a synesthetic experience — the near-silence of heavily falling or deeply settled snow, which absorbs ambient sound and produces a characteristic acoustic absence. Rome's abstract woodblock print addresses this perceptual phenomenon through purely visual means, using the formal properties of mokuhanga to suggest qualities of stillness and muffled sensation. Very pale, high-key pigment passages on washi, with minimal tonal contrast and softened edges achieved through bokashi gradation, translate the sensory dampening of a snow-covered landscape into visual terms. The water-based pigments of the mokuhanga tradition, absorbed into dampened handmade paper rather than sitting on its surface, produce the matte, light-absorbing quality appropriate to this subject.