Box Lid for 'Perplexity of Place'

This print functions as the cover image for a boxed portfolio or print suite titled 'Perplexity of Place', printed from multiple blocks using water-based pigments — the standard mokuhanga method, applied with a [baren](/glossary/baren) onto dampened [washi](/glossary/washi). The title points to questions of cultural and geographic location, a recurring concern in Crothers's work given his bicultural practice spanning Melbourne and Tokyo. Made the year after he completed his MFA at Tama Art University, the print belongs to the period in which he was consolidating Japanese technique around Australian subject matter and conceptual framing. Multiple-block colour woodcut, unlike the reductive method he would adopt for Anatomical Space and Emotional Space three years later, preserves each colour block for later reprinting and supports steady editions; soft tonal transitions can be achieved through [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation applied at the printing stage. The format — a print designed specifically as a box lid — situates the work within the Japanese tradition of integrated print object and container, where the housing forms part of the work rather than serving as packaging.