Untitled

This third untitled mokuhanga by Katherine Kenal dates from her MI-LAB Basic Training residency, where international artists work in a studio environment supplied with cherry plywood blocks, professional carving tools (to, aisuki, maru-nomi), and Echizen-milled washi. As an untitled print, it likely belongs to a sequence of investigations rather than a finished editioned work; Basic Training Program A culminates in artists producing a small edition, but study pieces accumulate throughout. Technical hallmarks of MI-LAB output include precise kento registration (visible in the absence of colour misalignment), restrained palettes drawn from traditional pigments such as gamboge, indigo, and sumi, and the soft, matte surface that water-based mokuhanga produces — distinct from the glossy ink films of Western relief printing. Kenal's print sits within a contemporary international mokuhanga community that includes alumni from MI-LAB residencies presenting work at the International Mokuhanga Conference and similar platforms, where Canadian, American, and European voices have entered a dialogue with Japanese printmaking lineages.