Tabula Rasa

The title references the philosophical concept of the mind as an unmarked surface prior to experience, drawn from Locke and Aristotle, aligning with Šmic's stated interest in the phenomenology of perception. Produced through mokuhanga, the work would have been printed using water-based pigments rubbed into dampened washi with a baren — a process that permits the soft tonal washes and bokashi gradations characteristic of the medium. The title proposes an investigation of surface, receptivity, and the conditions preceding inscription, with the paper substrate functioning as the conceptual subject. Within Šmic's broader practice, completed shortly after her 2019 BA at NCAD and during her early work at Graphic Studio Dublin, the print sits among the foundational pieces in which she began articulating her reflexive, multi-layered approach to image-making. Mokuhanga's reliance on layered impressions, careful registration, and the visible trace of woodgrain offers a fitting technical vocabulary for examining how meaning accumulates on a surface, and how the apparent emptiness of a blank slate is itself a condition produced through material and conceptual mediation.