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 registration of multiple hand-carved blocks, with the key block typically carrying the contour and additional blocks delivering tonal shading through bokashi gradation worked into the wet ink at the moment of impression. The 2021 IMC juried exhibition in Nara, organized around the sumi theme, drew international submissions worked predominantly in carbon ink — a return to the monochromatic lineage that precedes the polychrome 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.