Untitled work by Karen Pittman

This untitled woodblock print by Pittman belongs to a body of work produced through the mokuhanga method, in which pigments are mixed with rice paste and water and impressed by hand using the baren onto dampened washi. The absence of a descriptive title is consistent with practice among contemporary mokuhanga artists, who often present works as numbered or untitled to direct attention toward formal qualities — registration, layering, the texture of the paper surface — rather than narrative reading. The medium permits both flat areas of saturated pigment and the graduated tonal washes known as bokashi, achieved by brushing pigment unevenly across the block before printing. As an exhibitor at the 2024 IMC Americas conference, Pittman is part of the cohort of North American printmakers who have absorbed these techniques through cross-Pacific exchange, applying them to imagery and approaches distinct from the historical ukiyo-e and shin-hanga schools while retaining the slow, multi-block, water-based process.