In Praise Of Idleness

The title borrows from Bertrand Russell's 1932 essay on the value of leisure, and Akino's treatment combines aquatint and etching with applied gold leaf — a technique she has used throughout her time at Graphic Studio Dublin. The gold leaf is laid by hand onto the printed sheet rather than printed, producing a flat metallic field that sits against the tonal greys of the aquatint and the bitten line of the etching. The effect recalls the gold-ground panels of byōbu screens and earlier Japanese painting traditions familiar from Akino's Kyoto training, used here in the service of an Irish-resident artist's meditation on stillness. Like much of her 2022 output, the print pairs a contemplative title with a restrained pictorial structure: enough atmosphere to read as a place or a state, withheld enough to remain ambiguous.