Hibiki 5

Fifth in Bligh's Hibiki (響) sequence, this print continues the series' investigation of resonance translated into visual layering. Where serial mokuhanga in the traditional ukiyo-e idiom typically varied subject across a set, Bligh's numbered Hibiki prints instead vary the registration, color weight, and bokashi handling of related abstract fields, so each iteration reads as a different harmonic of the same underlying motif. The composition is built up through multiple block impressions on dampened washi, with the baren controlling how thoroughly pigment transfers at each pass. This serial method — closer to the variations of a musical theme than to ukiyo-e's narrative print sets — was one of Bligh's contributions to contemporary mokuhanga practice. As a teacher at Tama Art University and across institutions in Ireland, Japan, the United States, and Scotland, Bligh carried this serial-abstract approach into her workshops, shaping how a generation of Irish printmakers came to understand water-based woodblock printing.