Iris No 165 — 花菖蒲 No 165

Among the final numbered entries in Sugiura Kazutoshi's extraordinary iris series, the one hundred sixty-fifth composition is a late statement in a decades-long investigation — the hana-shōbu rendered with a mastery so complete it seems effortless, the layered silkscreen-woodblock-gold-leaf process producing results that belie the complexity of their making. Works at this terminal range of the series carry a different weight than earlier entries: they are not explorations but conclusions, not questions but answers — though Sugiura, by continuing to add to the series, seems to have resisted the idea that any single answer could be final.