Untitled

This seventh untitled print from Kenal's 2024 MI-LAB residency reflects the program's emphasis on direct technical instruction over conceptual development — Basic Training Program A is, by design, a foundational course in mokuhanga's tools and materials rather than a vehicle for completing a major personal project. The instructors at MI-LAB include working Japanese printers whose lineage extends through the twentieth-century sosaku-hanga (creative print) tradition, in which the artist conceives, carves, and prints the entire work, departing from the ukiyo-e division of labour. Kenal's untitled prints from this residency therefore inherit both the technical craft of the historical workshops and the artist-as-maker stance of the modern movement. The print likely shows the surface qualities characteristic of well-executed mokuhanga: clean kento alignment, even pigment saturation across each colour field, and the slight relief of the paper where the baren has compressed it against the block. These are the markers of the foundational competencies the residency is designed to instill.