Here Comes the Wind God

The Fujin counterpart to "Here Comes the Thunder God," this print depicts Japan's wind deity — traditionally shown carrying a billowing cloth bag of winds across his shoulders. Shiomi's mokuhanga interpretation joins the lineage of Raijin/Fujin pairs in Japanese art, including the screens of Sotatsu and Korin, while updating the iconography for contemporary woodblock practice. The wind god subject aligns naturally with Shiomi's broader interest in atmospheric phenomena and the rhythms of natural forces, which her abstract work translates into flowing pictorial movement. Compositionally, the print likely uses linear rhythms or sweeping curved forms to suggest wind, exploiting mokuhanga's capacity for fluid gradient (bokashi) and crisp carved edge in the same image. As a diptych with the thunder god panel, the work positions the two deities as opposing yet complementary forces — sound versus motion, percussion versus breath — a structural pairing that runs through much of East Asian classical iconography and that Shiomi's broader practice engages through abstraction elsewhere.