Mt. White A

Mt. White A is a vertical-format woodcut measuring 60 × 43 cm, the title indicating a mountain motif rendered in pale tonalities—suggesting either a snow-bound peak or a surface reduced to chalk-white planes through carved relief and sparing inking. The "A" designation places the work within a serial investigation, a method common among Tama-trained printmakers who pursue iterative variations on a single motif across distinct states. At this scale the print exceeds traditional oban tate-e proportions, sized for contemporary gallery exhibition rather than album or print-portfolio circulation. Execution in the medium typically relies on multi-block registration with selective bokashi gradation to model the mountain's volumes, hand-printed on washi using a baren. Kitamura's selection for the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025 with this work positions her within the meisho-e tradition's contemporary continuation, where mountain subjects—central to Japanese landscape printmaking from Hokusai's Fugaku Sanjūrokkei through Yoshida Hiroshi's Japanese Alps series—remain a working site for formal experimentation in the woodblock medium.