Untitled

Without a descriptive title to anchor the reading, this untitled woodblock print sits within Cladis's broader investigation of the mokuhanga medium as both image and material object. Contemporary mokuhanga in his idiom typically foregrounds the interaction between water-based pigment and handmade washi, with bokashi gradations applied by baren to exploit the paper's absorbency and surface tooth. Given Cladis's dual practice as papermaker and printmaker, the substrate itself often functions as a compositional element — kozo or gampi sheets selected for fiber length, formation, and tonal warmth become integral to the work rather than a neutral support. Untitled compositions in his output tend toward abstraction or restrained representational fields, drawing on the reductive vocabulary of color-field printing and the Japanese aesthetic principles he encountered as a Japan Foundation Fellow. The print reflects his ongoing dialogue with the Echizen papermaking community and the technical lineage of mokuhanga preserved through the International Mokuhanga Association, where traditional carving, registration with kento marks, and hand-burnishing remain central to the contemporary practice he teaches at the University of Iowa Center for the Book.