Richard Mathieson

This print from Michael Reed's portrait series takes Richard Mathieson as its subject, continuing the artist's practice of rendering named contemporary artists in the mokuhanga tradition. Each portrait in the series proceeds through the same disciplined sequence: a drawing transferred to the cherry or shina keyblock, the keyblock cut to carry the structural lines of the face, color blocks cut and registered to the [kento](/glossary/kento) marks, and the sheet pulled by hand with the [baren](/glossary/baren) on dampened [washi](/glossary/washi). The translation of likeness through this process forces a reduction of continuous tone into discrete printed planes, with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations brushed onto the block providing what photographic shading cannot. Reed's inclusion in the juried international exhibition at the 2021 IMC in Nara, themed on [sumi](/glossary/sumi), situates the portrait series within a contemporary mokuhanga discourse that treats black ink not as neutral outline but as a primary expressive medium — its density, its absorption into the washi, and its capacity to carry the modeling of a face.