Untitled

An untitled mokuhanga print by Pittman, produced in the water-based Japanese woodblock tradition the artist works in. Without a descriptive title, the work resists narrative reading and directs attention to the surface qualities particular to the technique: the absorbency of [washi](/glossary/washi), the soft tonal gradation achievable through [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi), and the tactile impression left by the [baren](/glossary/baren) during hand-burnishing. Contemporary North American mokuhanga practitioners frequently employ the untitled designation to foreground formal and material concerns over subject matter, situating the work closer to the abstract printmaking lineage than to the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) or [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) traditions of Edo-period Japan. Pittman's inclusion in the International Mokuhanga Conference Americas exhibition in Echizen in 2024 places this print within an active dialogue between Western abstraction and Japanese craft technique. The piece reflects the broader project of the IMC, which gathers practitioners from outside Japan who have adopted mokuhanga as a primary medium, and reinforces the technique's expansion beyond its historical regional and figurative associations.