Untitled

A second untitled print from Kenal's 2024 MI-LAB residency in Echizen, this work continues her exploration of mokuhanga's water-based process under the guidance of Japanese master printers. The Basic Training Program A curriculum builds incrementally: artists begin with single-block exercises and progress to multi-block compositions with hand-mixed pigments. Untitled prints from such residencies often function as technical studies, where the artist tests bokashi — the graded wash achieved by brushing pigment onto a damp block with a wide hake brush — or experiments with the registration of two or three colours. The Echizen workshops emphasise nori (rice paste) as a binder, mixed directly into the pigment on the block surface to control flow and adhesion to the paper. Kenal's Canadian background, working through this discipline for the first time, places the print within the broader contemporary mokuhanga movement that MI-LAB has helped seed since its founding: a global network of artists trained in, and reinterpreting, the techniques refined during the Edo-period nishiki-e tradition.