Michael Smither

A mokuhanga portrait of New Zealand painter Michael Smither, executed in Reed's pared-back portrait idiom. The print likely renders Smither's features in broad carved areas of flat ink offset by reserved [washi](/glossary/washi), the keyblock supplying the structural drawing while supplementary blocks provide tonal masses. [Bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradients would soften transitions across the brow and cheek, and the absorbency of washi gives the [sumi](/glossary/sumi) a matte, slightly granular surface rather than the slick finish of oil-based relief printing. Consistent with the 2021 IMC sumi conference brief, the palette is likely concentrated in black with at most one or two supporting hues. Reed's portrait series functions as a record of the New Zealand visual arts milieu translated through a Japanese printmaking vocabulary; depicting Smither, himself a maker of strongly graphic painted images, places one printmaker's vision of another artist within that exchange.