Hank Chinaski

Named for Charles Bukowski's literary alter ego, the print likely casts a small animal — most plausibly a stout, world-weary moth, beetle, or street-cat figure — in the role of the dishevelled poet. Hand-colouring over the etched and aquatinted impression introduces flat washes of watercolour or gouache that sit against the plate-printed line, a technique Imazu uses to particularise individual creatures within an editioned image. The bitten line carries character and silhouette; the aquatint provides tonal weight; the brushed colour does the work of mood and identity. The piece belongs to a recurring strand in Imazu's practice in which her tiny neighbours are given proper names borrowed from literature, music, and family lore — a strategy that pulls the small intaglio plate toward portraiture and away from natural-history illustration, while keeping the close descriptive observation that the medium rewards.