Clouds and Building

A mezzotint that places cloud forms against or above an architectural element, probably a small building reduced to silhouette. The technique works from dark to light: the copper plate is first roughened uniformly with a mezzotint rocker so it holds ink across the whole surface, and burnishing then brings light passages out of that prepared darkness. Cloud subjects suit this reverse process particularly well, since highlights emerge from the black ground in soft gradients rather than being applied. Made in 2017, the year after Omori completed his Master's in Western Painting at Tohoku University of Art and Design, this print belongs to his ongoing exploration of weather and sky subjects, in which small instances of the natural world are isolated against the deep tonal blacks the medium produces. The pairing of an architectural element with cloud forms is uncommon in his catalogue, which more often isolates natural subjects without external context.