Greer Twiss

A portrait identifying its subject by personal name. The New Zealand sculptor Greer Twiss, born 1937, is a senior figure in the country's mid-century figurative sculpture; if the print depicts him, it continues the thread of artist-portraying-artist visible across the titles in this series, where sculptors from New Zealand and Britain appear among the named sitters. Mokuhanga portraiture of this kind relies on careful [kento](/glossary/kento) registration of multiple hand-carved blocks, with the key block typically carrying the contour and additional blocks delivering tonal shading through [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation worked into the wet ink at the moment of impression. The 2021 IMC juried exhibition in Nara, organized around the [sumi](/glossary/sumi) theme, drew international submissions worked predominantly in carbon ink — a return to the monochromatic lineage that precedes the polychrome [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) tradition. Reed's inclusion in the exhibition situates his practice within the global community of contemporary mokuhanga practitioners who maintain the water-based, hand-burnished technique outside Japan.