Tabi 41

Kunio Kaneko (b. 1947) is a contemporary Japanese printmaker working in the sosaku-hanga tradition, in which the artist independently designs, carves, and prints each work. His extended Tabi series takes its name from a word that denotes both journey and the split-toe cloth footwear worn with traditional Japanese dress—a layering of meaning that runs through the sequence. This catalogued impression of Tabi 41 may represent a variant state of the composition distinguished by differences in ink density, color balance, or printing pressure from related impressions produced from the same woodblocks. In the sosaku-hanga framework, such variation is understood as intrinsic to the hand-made nature of the medium rather than as error or inconsistency. Kaneko's work in the Tabi series typically engages with compressed or abstracted landscape elements, using flat areas of color, deliberate line quality, and the texture of washi paper as expressive components, situating the series within a long tradition of travel-as-subject in Japanese visual and literary culture.