Ayumi, the Japanese word for steps or a measured walk, is a color etching printed on BFK Rives wove paper, a Western printmaking substrate whose smooth, even surface supports fine intaglio detail. The title introduces a sequential, rhythmic quality—the accumulation of marks across the plate mirroring the accumulation of footfalls along a path. Hasegawa often used Japanese titles for works that drew more explicitly on his Eastern heritage, and Ayumi likely features vertical or diagonal calligraphic strokes that read simultaneously as abstract gesture and as notation of movement through space. BFK Rives, a robust cotton-fiber paper, accepts both heavy ink coverage and delicate aquatint halftones, allowing Hasegawa to build the luminous depth his color etchings require. Multiple plate passes in different hues produce the chromatic layering characteristic of his mature work, where colors bleed into one another at their boundaries rather than registering as flat, discrete fields.
Ayumi was created by Shoichi Hasegawa (長谷川潔一).
Ayumi uses Etching, on color etching printed on bfk rives wove paper.
Ayumi depicts calligraphy and abstract.
