Untitled work by Manfred Egger

Egger contributed this untitled print in the context of the 2021 International Mokuhanga Conference, whose framing theme positioned sumi as both subject and medium. Mokuhanga prints are produced from carved cherry or shina blocks inked with water-based pigments and pressed by hand using a baren, a circular pad of bamboo sheath wrapped around a coiled cord. The marks visible in a finished impression — the texture of washi fibers, the small irregularities in tone where the baren has been drawn unevenly, the soft edges where pigment has bled into damp paper — are the direct trace of this manual process. Without a descriptive title, the print invites attention to those physical traces rather than to narrative content. Egger's selection for the juried IMC exhibition places the work alongside that of mokuhanga practitioners active in Japan, North America, and across Europe.