Jessica

Jessica is the namesake print of Lyon's extended series with this model, likely presenting a frontal portrait or full-figure study that establishes the visual vocabulary subsequent prints in the group develop. Lyon's figurative mokuhanga is built from photographic sources processed into digital halftone or stochastic-dot patterns, with the patterns then translated into carved woodblocks via CNC milling. Printed by hand with [baren](/glossary/baren) on dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) using nori-bound water-based pigments, the finished impression renders photographic likeness through the cumulative density of thousands of small printed marks rather than through flat color or smooth gradient. This technical synthesis — Edo-period materials and printing method, twenty-first-century carving and image-processing — is the defining feature of Lyon's contribution to contemporary mokuhanga. As the anchor image of the Jessica group, this print situates the sitter within a tradition of serial portraiture that runs from Hokusai's repeated views of Fuji to the photographic studies of artists such as Chuck Close, with whom Lyon shares a methodical, mark-by-mark approach to the figure.