
IMC 2024 Echizen submission
- Medium:
- Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
- Image courtesy of
- IMC 2024 Echizen
Description
Submitted to the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference held in Echizen — a region historically associated with [washi](/glossary/washi) production — this print situates Van de Velde within a contemporary international cohort working in the Japanese woodblock tradition. The work is printed on Japanese paper using the water-based mokuhanga technique, in which pigment is applied to carved blocks and burnished into the sheet with a [baren](/glossary/baren) rather than pressed mechanically. Consistent with Van de Velde's broader practice, the image is concerned with the registration of sunlight as it falls on a specific surface at a specific moment, translated through the material vocabulary of the medium: layered transparencies, soft-edged [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradients, and the absorbent matte surface of the paper itself. The IMC submission context places the work in dialogue with both Japanese-trained printmakers and Western artists adapting mokuhanga, a transnational position that mirrors her own Belgian-Japanese background and her sustained interest in the meeting points between the two cultures.