IMC 2024 Echizen submission

This work was selected for the Asia exhibition at the International Mokuhanga Conference held in Echizen in 2024. As a contemporary mokuhanga, it falls within the post-war sosaku-hanga lineage in which the artist designs, carves, and prints the work themselves, rather than working through the publisher-carver-printer division of labor that defined Edo-period nishiki-e production. Echizen, in Fukui Prefecture, has been a center of washi production for over 1,500 years, and the IMC's choice to host its Asia exhibition there reflects the material relationship between mokuhanga and handmade Japanese paper. Works submitted to IMC juried exhibitions are typically printed on Echizen kozo or similar long-fiber washi, using water-based pigments applied through the baren, with bokashi gradations and registration marks (kento) executed by the artist's own hand. Aiu's selection for the 2024 Echizen show, following inclusion in the Nara 2021 juried international exhibition, places this submission within sustained engagement with the contemporary mokuhanga community across multiple conference cycles rather than a single appearance.