Flame

The title points to an ascending vertical gesture, a concentrated upward sweep of sumi that evokes combustion without illustrating it. Shinoda's flame imagery typically resolves into a single tapering stroke or a clustered eruption of marks rising through the sheet, the ink graduated through bokashi from saturated black at the base to translucent gray at the tip. The composition relies on the absorbency of washi to register the brush's deceleration, preserving evidence of the gesture's rhythm. As mokuhanga, Flame is a translation of painted gesture into multiple impressions: the carved blocks fix what was originally a singular movement, and the baren-pulled registration produces edges with the characteristic softness of woodblock printing rather than the harder line of lithography, the medium with which Shinoda is more closely identified. The work belongs to her ongoing investigation of natural phenomena as armatures for abstract calligraphic expression.