Sarah

This second portrait of Sarah continues Lyon's practice of returning to the same sitter across multiple states and compositions, much as Edo-period print designers reissued favorite subjects in altered settings. Like its companions, the print is a mokuhanga produced from CNC-cut cherry blocks, with each plate corresponding to a single tonal layer drawn from a photographic source. Lyon hand-pulls each impression with a baren onto long-fibered kozo washi, building the image up through transparent overlays of sumi and pigment so that the figure emerges from the paper rather than sitting on top of it. The repetition of the Sarah subject across distinct prints allows comparative reading: changes in pose, scale, or palette become visible as deliberate variations rather than as separate works. Within the broader contemporary mokuhanga movement — driven in North America by groups around the International Mokuhanga Conference and artists trained, as Lyon was, by Hiroki Morinoue — these portraits represent one of the most sustained efforts to push the medium toward photographic likeness without abandoning the hand-printed surface.