Blue in the Mirror

A woodblock print in which blue pigment and the device of the mirror serve as twin organizational principles. Mirrored imagery in Ikeda's work raises questions of identity, doubling, and the reliability of reflection as a means of self-knowledge. Blue may be achieved through multiple keyblock impressions and likely functions both descriptively and symbolically, evoking distance, melancholy, or water. Figures, if present, appear in fragmentary or doubled form consistent with the mirror's implied duplication. The woodblock medium imposes a graphic directness that contrasts with the more painterly qualities of Ikeda's lithographic and intaglio work, lending the mirror theme a structural clarity.