Beyond Wood 1

Beyond Wood 1 belongs to a body of work in which Bligh interrogated the substrate of mokuhanga itself, treating the cherry plank not merely as matrix but as conceptual subject. The title gestures toward what lies past the literal grain — the transparent, water-borne pigment films that mokuhanga uniquely permits, and the negative spaces where the [baren](/glossary/baren) has not transferred ink to the [washi](/glossary/washi). Compositionally, prints in this series typically layer broad [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations against incised or carved-away passages, allowing the natural figure of the block to register as a counter-image. Made in 2002, near the midpoint of Bligh's three-decade Kyoto residency, the work reflects her mature engagement with the medium after her MFA at Tama Art University and her move into a permanent teaching practice across Japan and Ireland. Within her oeuvre, Beyond Wood marks a turn toward a more reflexive, conceptual register that helped translate mokuhanga to Western contemporary print audiences.