Untitled

This untitled print belongs to Karen Pittman's body of mokuhanga work and was made within the contemporary North American practice of the Japanese water-based woodblock medium. Pittman exhibited at the 2024 IMC Americas juried exhibition in Echizen, one of the regular forums for surveying the current state of mokuhanga across the continent. Mokuhanga produced today differs from the [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) and [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) lineages it descends from in distribution of labor and subject matter — contemporary practitioners typically carve, print, and edition their own work rather than dividing those tasks between artist, carver, and printer, and the imagery is generally not linked to traditional categories such as [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga), [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e), or [kacho-e](/glossary/kacho-e). What carries forward is the materials and physical process: cherry or shina blocks, water-soluble pigments mixed with rice paste, dampened washi paper, kentō registration, and a baren wrapped in bamboo sheath. The untitled designation here aligns Pittman's print with the prevailing studio convention of contemporary mokuhanga rather than the named-subject tradition of historical Japanese prints.