Untitled

A mokuhanga print by Karen Pittman, untitled in keeping with the image-led conventions of much contemporary North American work in this medium. Mokuhanga relies on water-soluble pigments — typically gouache, [sumi](/glossary/sumi), or watercolor — bound to the woodblock with rice paste called nori, then rubbed by hand into dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) using a [baren](/glossary/baren) wrapped in a bamboo sheath. The resulting impression is built up through successive blocks, each carved from a separate piece of cherry, shina, or basswood and registered against kentō marks cut into the corners of the plates. Because the pigments are absorbed into the paper fibers rather than sitting on top of them, mokuhanga supports a specific visual vocabulary: soft-edged passages of color, [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations achieved by brushing wet pigment across the block, and the layered translucency that comes from stacking multiple thin impressions. Pittman exhibited at the IMC Echizen 2024 juried selection, an exhibition convened to represent the current state of mokuhanga practice in the Americas alongside Japanese and international peers.