Sarah Reclining

Sarah Reclining is a horizontal figure study in mokuhanga, depicting the sitter — a recurring model in Lyon's portrait practice — in a recumbent pose that descends from the long Western tradition of the reclining nude while being executed in a thoroughly Japanese matrix. Lyon typically works at scale far larger than Edo-period [oban](/glossary/oban) sheets, joining several pieces of kozo [washi](/glossary/washi) to accommodate near life-size figures, and translates a photographic source into hundreds of tonal layers cut by CNC router into cherry plywood. Each block is then inked and pulled by hand with a [baren](/glossary/baren), so that the finished sheet carries both the cool precision of digital halftone separation and the velvety, water-based registration of traditional [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e). Reclining figures appear repeatedly in his Sarah and Lily series, allowing him to test how flesh, bedding, and cast shadow read when reduced to flat planes of layered [sumi](/glossary/sumi) and earth pigment. The print belongs to his sustained investigation, beginning around the early 2000s, of the female nude as a subject for post-digital mokuhanga.