The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons is a complete suite of four mokuhanga woodblock prints from 2019 that marks seasonal passage through domestic or food objects rather than landscape or botanical imagery. Each print in the suite addresses a single season, with water-based pigments applied to dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) through multiple carved blocks, allowing the [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations characteristic of Japanese woodblock printing to carry atmospheric and temporal weight. Nam's choice of mokuhanga — a traditional Japanese printing technique she teaches — for a work organized around seasonal themes places the suite in dialogue with the long tradition of seasonal prints in Japanese printmaking, while redirecting the subject matter toward the transient objects of contemporary everyday life that characterize her practice.