Color (II)

Color (II) (「色」) functions as the second statement in Sugimoto's small chromatic series, paired with Color (I) but operating as an independent investigation rather than a sequel. Pendant or numbered prints occupy a recognized place in Japanese printmaking, from Edo-period series like Hiroshige's meisho-e sequences to contemporary practice; in Sugimoto's hands the format becomes a way to test variations of the same proposition without resolving them into a single image. Where the first plate likely establishes a chromatic premise, this second print reworks or inverts it, perhaps shifting the relationship of figure to ground, the dominant hue, or the layering sequence of inks. Mixed media intaglio permits this kind of adjacent-but-distinct repetition: the same plate inked differently, the same composition subjected to a new color overlay, or a freshly etched plate worked alongside the first. Within the broader logic of Sugimoto's practice—formed at Tokyo Geidai's painting department and oriented around the porous boundary between painted and printed image—the pair reads as a printmaker's version of a painter's color study.