
IMC 2024 Echizen submission
by Pat Griffin
- Medium:
- Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock)
- Image courtesy of
- IMC 2024 Echizen
Description
Griffin's submission to the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference juried exhibition was shown in the Europe and Africa regional display in Echizen, the historic centre of Japanese [washi](/glossary/washi) production. As an IMC selection, the print would have been produced using traditional water-based pigments printed by hand with a [baren](/glossary/baren) onto washi, the technique that distinguishes mokuhanga from oil-based Western relief printing. The Echizen siting carried particular significance: the conference brings practitioners into direct contact with the papermakers whose work supplies the medium, and exhibitors often respond by foregrounding the tactile qualities of the substrate — visible fibres, registered embossing from the [kento](/glossary/kento) marks, soft tonal washes created with [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation. Griffin's selection situates her within the international network of contemporary mokuhanga artists who have studied or shown at the IMC since its first edition in 2011, and reflects the emergence of an Irish mokuhanga community working in a tradition that remains rare outside Japan.



