Name of the work: Puut puhuu

Puut puhuu translates from Finnish as "the trees speak," suggesting an image rooted in the boreal forest landscape that recurs throughout Nordic mokuhanga practice. The print likely depicts trees rendered as the principal subject, drawing on the contemplative, nature-observant tradition that has drawn many Finnish printmakers to the water-based woodblock technique. Compositionally, works of this type typically rely on the tonal range mokuhanga affords through bokashi gradation, where pigment is brushed unevenly onto the block before printing to suggest atmosphere, mist, or shifting light through bark and foliage. The absorbent surface of washi receives layered impressions from the baren, allowing successive blocks to build depth without the heavy ink films of oil-based relief printing. Rantala's selection for the Sumi-Fusion juried exhibition at IMC 2021 in Nara situates this print within a generation of Nordic practitioners — alongside other Finnish mokuhanga artists — adapting the Japanese technique to subjects drawn from northern European forests rather than the meisho-e or kacho-e traditions of Edo-period Japan.