IMC 2024 Echizen submission

This mokuhanga was Nam's submission to the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference held in Echizen, the Fukui Prefecture region historically central to [washi](/glossary/washi) papermaking. IMC submissions typically circulate as portfolio exchanges among participating printmakers, with works printed in modest editions on Echizen-milled [kozo](/glossary/kozo) papers supplied to contributors. Consistent with Nam's wider practice, the image likely centers on a single observed object or domestic still-life arrangement—cut flowers in a takeout container, plastic packaging, or another vessel of temporary use—rendered with the flat color fields, soft [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations, and registered keyblock outlines characteristic of contemporary mokuhanga. Her work in this medium habitually pairs the slow, hand-burnished [baren](/glossary/baren) technique with subjects drawn from disposable consumer culture, producing a deliberate tension between the permanence of the print and the impermanence of its subject. The Echizen submission situates Nam within an international community of mokuhanga practitioners reviving and extending the technique outside Japan, a network she also engages through her teaching at the University of Kansas and the co-directed Visual Art in Japan summer program.