Golden butterflies

Butterflies recur across Iwami's late prints as small, isolated forms set against larger embossed grounds — emblems of fragility and brief flight that contrast with the geometric weight of her water and moon compositions. "Golden butterflies" indicates the use of gold leaf, a material she handled with the same precision as silver and mica, applied either as solid blocks within the printed image or as delicate fragments registered through additional carving. The print likely combines these gold passages with deep embossing pressed into dampened [kozo](/glossary/kozo) paper, so that each butterfly reads as a raised, light-catching presence rather than a flat pigment shape. Within Iwami's broader practice, butterflies extend the vocabulary of natural motifs she developed under Koshiro Onchi while remaining distinct from his austere abstractions. Her use of gold also connects the work to older Japanese decorative traditions — Rinpa screens, Edo lacquer — filtered through a [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) sensibility committed to artist-driven production.