Bing Dawe

Bing Dawe is a New Zealand sculptor whose work often engages with environmental themes and the natural forms of South Island landscapes; Reed's portrait places him within a series documenting fellow practitioners through mokuhanga. The print likely presents a tightly framed likeness, with the subject's features distributed across multiple blocks to allow controlled overlays—a portrait approach that depends on the registration accuracy mokuhanga makes possible through kentō marks. Hand-pulled with a baren on dampened washi, the impression accumulates rather than impacts, producing a softness in transition that suits portraiture. Reed's participation in the 2021 IMC, with sumi as its theme, foregrounds the role of black ink in conveying volume and character without the polychrome registers of nishiki-e. The Dawe portrait, like others in the series, functions as both art-historical record and technical demonstration—an argument that mokuhanga's visual vocabulary, often associated with Edo-period genres, can carry contemporary likeness with the same fidelity.