Untitled

This untitled print exemplifies Poonam Athalye's practice in mokuhanga, the water-based Japanese woodblock technique she pursues through her London-based project 'Limbu Timbu.' Working with hand-carved blocks, [washi](/glossary/washi) paper, and a [baren](/glossary/baren) for hand-burnishing, Athalye's prints draw on the visual vocabularies of both her Marathi heritage and traditional Japanese printmaking. Untitled works occupy a particular place in contemporary mokuhanga practice — they invite viewers to engage with surface, registration, pigment density, and the layered evidence of successive impressions without the directing frame of a descriptive title. The water-based pigments characteristic of mokuhanga produce softer transitions than oil-based Western relief printing, and [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations are achieved by brushing pigment unevenly across the block before printing. Athalye's broader output spans illustration and children's content alongside her woodblock work, and her prints reflect over a decade of narrative image-making translated into the disciplined registration and layered colour of the mokuhanga medium.