George Baloghy

This mokuhanga print bears the name of George Baloghy, a New Zealand painter whose hard-edged realist treatment of suburban and architectural subjects sits within a contemporary figurative tradition. Reed's practice of titling prints after individual artists situates the sheet as portrait or homage — a mode with precedent in the Japanese tradition, where [surimono](/glossary/surimono) prints exchanged among Edo-period circles often bore inscribed dedications. Translating a painterly source into mokuhanga compels reduction: the design must be resolved into discrete carved blocks, with [sumi](/glossary/sumi) typically anchoring a key block of drawn line and successive colour blocks layered beneath, each registered through kentō marks cut into the wood. Pigments mixed with rice paste are brushed onto the block and burnished into [washi](/glossary/washi) by means of a [baren](/glossary/baren), producing the medium's characteristic flat, saturated planes. [Bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations along block edges introduce atmospheric depth without compromising the printed surface.