IMC 2024 Echizen submission

Submitted to the juried exhibition held in conjunction with the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference in Echizen — Japan's centuries-old papermaking center in Fukui Prefecture — this print emerged from Steele-Makasci's residency at MI-LAB (Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory) earlier that same year. Echizen has produced washi for over 1,500 years, and IMC submissions traditionally favor works printed on locally milled kozo papers, whose long fibers absorb the successive layers of water-based pigment that mokuhanga requires. Without a press, the printmaker relies on hand pressure through the baren to register multiple blocks and pull the subtle bokashi gradations characteristic of the medium. As an interdisciplinary artist whose practice across painting, printmaking, and book arts addresses gender, environmental, and economic inequities, Steele-Makasci's IMC submission situates her social-justice concerns within a transnational community of contemporary mokuhanga practitioners working to extend the technique beyond its historical ukiyo-e subject matter.