ALABORA: Adjacent Arms (Tonariau Kataude) — Photo 2

Adjacent Arms (Tonariau Kataude) belongs to Mokutani Yoshiaki's ALABORA series, a sustained body of copperplate etchings produced in 2020 that reconstructs fragmented anatomy through layered intaglio passes. The title refers to two arms positioned in proximity — a motif Mokutani frames not as a portrait of a body but as an isolated study of limb against limb. The composition typically isolates the arms from their figural context, presenting them as discrete forms bounded by the rectangular plate edge. Mokutani's etching practice exploits sustained acid biting to produce dense tonal ranges, with foul-bite passages and aquatint deposits yielding the saturated colour fields characteristic of his mature work. The 'Photo 2' designation indicates the print's place within a documentary sequence, where the artist treats individual states as discrete works rather than progressions toward a finished image. The ALABORA series sits within Mokutani's wider investigation of how the corrosion process — visible in irregular bite-edges and unpredictable mid-tones — registers time and chance on the matrix surface.