They Will Definitely Catch the Light

A return to mezzotint from the aquatint work that occupied much of Omori's early-2020s output. The title — declarative, almost addressed to the subjects themselves — indicates objects positioned to receive light, with the print's compositional logic built around that anticipated illumination. Mezzotint suits this premise because the technique releases highlights from a fully prepared black ground through burnishing; light is recovered rather than applied, which lends a different temporality to the image than a process working from white toward dark. By 2025 Omori had been a sustained presence in Japanese print exhibitions and prizes for roughly a decade, and this work continues his practice of placing small natural subjects — typically grass, water droplets, or clouds — within the deep tonal field that mezzotint uniquely produces. The title carries an implicit observational claim about the surfaces depicted.