Sun & Fish

"Sun & Fish" from around 1980 is a mezzotint in ink and color on paper, combining two potent symbols from Japanese visual tradition. The mezzotint technique, which involves roughening the entire plate surface and then selectively smoothing areas to create tonal gradations, produces the velvety blacks and luminous highlights that make this method ideal for rendering both the brilliance of sunlight and the sleek forms of fish beneath water. Ouchi Makoto places these two elements in dialogue, the sun above and the fish below, creating a vertical composition that spans from sky to depth. The fish in Japanese culture represents perseverance and abundance, while the sun speaks to cosmic energy. Together they suggest a complete world, compressed into the intimate scale of a print.