beating of copper - 184

Produced six years after the early works in the "Beating of Copper" series, this 2025 drypoint reflects the maturation of Ikeda's extended project. By entry 184, the cumulative logic of the series has become evident: each numbered work is not a discrete composition but a continuation of a single sustained investigation into surface, density, and the physical record of engraved labor. Drypoint's immediacy—no acid bath, no stop-out varnish—means every mark is a direct transaction between the printmaker's hand and the copper plate. The burr, vulnerable to wear across edition printing, lends each pull a particular tonal richness that diminishes with successive impressions, making early pulls within the edition notably warmer in shadow. Ikeda's handling in the later numbered works tends toward finer, more closely spaced marks, building tonal gradients through accumulated fine lines rather than heavy parallel strokes. The result reads as compressed optical texture rather than illusionistic space.