Hawk

Hawk addresses one of the recurring motifs in Kojima's symbolic repertoire. The taka has been a fixture of Japanese art since the Muromachi period, associated with samurai patronage, falconry, and martial virtue, and its iconographic weight gives the print a different register from her plum or peony images. The composition likely isolates the bird against an unmarked field, its body rendered in graduated black with the white feathering of breast and underside picked out in cream — Kojima's two-tone palette working particularly well for the hawk's natural contrast. Lithography accommodates the dense detailing of plumage and the precise drawing of the curved beak and talons. The pose may be perched and watchful or in mid-flight; either reading sustains the bird's traditional emblematic function. Within Kojima's wider body of work, Hawk sits opposite her bijin-ga pairings, demonstrating that her engagement with traditional motifs extends beyond decorative kacho-e to the more masculine and martial branches of Japanese animal imagery, a range characteristic of her dual fine-art and textile-design practice.