Untitled (Sawada 01)

An untitled work from Sawada's expanded-printmaking practice, executed in inkjet print, laser print, and mixed media. The combination of two reproductive technologies — pigment ink deposited on paper and toner fused by heat — places the work within Sawada's investigation of chains of reproduction, in which an image is repeatedly transferred between photographic capture, screen display, and printed output, accumulating loss and grain at each stage. Rather than the matrix-and-paper logic of mokuhanga or etching, the piece treats the office printer as a contemporary press, and the found or rephotographed source as a contemporary block. As the first numbered piece in this group, it likely establishes the visual vocabulary Sawada developed during and after her doctoral research at Kyoto Seika University, foregrounding indexicality — the trace of a prior image — over original mark-making. The work was made in the period leading to her selection for the 3rd PATinKyoto Print Art Triennale (2022), where her practice was framed as print logic without conventional print form.