“Iris”

"Iris" (2026) places Mibugawa squarely in the [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e) tradition — flowers and birds — closely associated in the woodblock canon with Hokusai's Large Flowers series and the iris pond imagery of Hiroshige and Ohara Koson. The print likely shows one or several iris stems, possibly rising from water, with the sword-shaped leaves carved on a keyblock and the flowers built up through layered colour blocks in violet, indigo, and pale yellow. Iris subjects suit mokuhanga because the broad, flat petals can carry sustained [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradients without losing structural clarity. Within Mibugawa's catalogue this print sits alongside his lotus pond images as part of a quieter, more focused strand of work distinct from his rural lanes and station views. As a recent dated edition, it represents the contemporary phase of his Unsōdō output, where [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) subject matter is filtered through a sōsaku-hanga production process — the artist designing, carving, and printing the edition himself rather than relying on workshop carvers and printers.