Untitled

An untitled mokuhanga print from Karen Pittman, the eighth in this group of works produced in the Japanese water-based woodblock tradition. The technical apparatus of mokuhanga is small and portable — carved wood blocks, hake and maru-bake brushes, a [baren](/glossary/baren), and a stack of dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) — but the procedural demands are substantial: color requires sequential registration of multiple blocks, pigment moisture must be balanced against paper moisture, and burnishing pressure is calibrated by hand. The resulting prints carry visible evidence of these decisions, including [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradients, the woodgrain showing through transparent color layers, and pressure variation across the impression. As an untitled work, the print resists the genre categories that organized the historical [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) market and instead presents itself as an autonomous studio object. Pittman's inclusion in the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference Americas exhibition in Echizen — alongside other juried practitioners from across North America — situates this output within the contemporary global development of the medium beyond its Japanese origins.