Untitled

This fifth untitled print extends Kenal's residency body of work at MI-LAB Echizen, where the 2024 Basic Training Program A introduced her to mokuhanga's distinctive material economy. Unlike Western relief printmaking with its oil-based inks and presses, mokuhanga uses water-soluble pigments mixed with rice paste on the block face, and pressure is applied by hand with the baren. The result is a print whose surface preserves the texture of the paper fibres and admits subtle gradations impossible to achieve with mechanical press equalisation. Untitled works from training residencies often serve as the artist's practical vocabulary — a record of which carving gestures, brushing pressures, and paper dampness levels yielded which results. Kenal's print, considered alongside the other seven untitled works in this group, suggests a methodical approach to absorbing the medium. The MI-LAB program has trained artists from across the Americas, Europe, and Oceania since its founding, and Kenal's participation places her within that contemporary cohort carrying mokuhanga technique into new geographic and conceptual territory.