Cold

The single-word title points to a winter scene—snow settled on a village roof, a figure muffled against wind, or a stripped-down landscape reduced to its essential elements. Sekino's winter prints typically rely on areas of unprinted washi to carry the weight of the snow, with sparse, calligraphic carving picking out a branch, beam, or rooftop line. The matte texture of pigment hand-applied with a baren contrasts with the absorbent paper to produce the cold pictorial surface the title invites. As a sosaku-hanga artist working within the jiga-jikoku-jizuri tradition, Sekino carved and printed his own blocks, which allowed close control of inking and bokashi gradation. Winter subjects appear regularly across his northern Honshu and Hokkaido prints, drawing on a childhood spent in snowbound Aomori City and on the broader Tohoku visual culture he carried into his mature work.