Dancing Festival

Dancing Festival depicts figures caught in the coordinated motion of a Japanese matsuri — likely a Bon Odori or related summer dance gathering, in which participants in yukata circle a yagura platform beneath strung lanterns. At 92 × 78 cm, the work operates at a near-poster scale that accommodates the layered mark-making characteristic of lithographic practice: tusche washes for tonal mass, crayon hatching for textural specificity, and multi-stone registration where color is involved. Unlike mokuhanga, lithography permits painterly gesture to be transferred directly from the drawing surface, and Kimoto's cohort of Musashino Art University-trained printmakers has used that latitude to depart from the carved-line vocabulary of the woodblock tradition. Festival subjects sit within an extended lineage in Japanese print culture, from Hiroshige's meisho-e of shrine processions to shin-hanga renderings of seasonal ritual, but Kimoto situates the motif within contemporary planographic practice. The print was selected for the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025, the year following its completion, marking the artist's professional entry into the exhibition circuit at age 22.