"Sleeping Nude" by Junichiro Sekino

A woman, naked, lies on a bed over there like an afterthought. I notice the length of the bed behind her bent figure and realizing it is too small for her, and I wonder if it a child's bed? Other objects in the room -the window blinds, the pattern on the carpet - seem relatively large, further diminishing the bed and the sleeping figure. Though she has the proportions and curves of a woman, there is something playful and innocent here. A song pops into my head:

Raindrops are falling on my head
And just like the guy whose feet
Are too big for his bed
Nothing seems to fit

The lyrics are sung cheerily over a music box melody, and I smile.

This scene doesn't seem to be about her, though all compositional cues point back to her. This scene seems to be about us watching her. Her nakedness and her slumber emphasize her vulnerability. Her bed is undersized, but yet a world unto itself, with lines, layers and patterns suggestive of a portal to another place. In contrast, the room around her is static. Mostly hard vertical and horizontal lines. I imagine she is having an adventurous dream.

Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes
Will soon be turning red
Crying's not for me 'cause,
I'm never gonna stop the rain
By complaining,
Because I'm freeNothing's worrying me  

Two Views of Nihonbashi: Junichiro Sekino and Utagawa Hiroshige

The first print shown here is Nihonbashi by Junichiro Sekino and the second is Clear Weather after Snow at Nihonbashi Bridge by Utagawa Hiroshige.

I sit here pondering how to cross the divide.

I look above and listen to the revs of countless engines and the continuous whoosh of unseen cars overhead. There is a bit of yellow and blue, but all else is a grey hum. It is a place I have been to many times before and will be again. A place where everyone simultaneously waits, feeling small and powerless, but with a heightened awareness of an unceasing journey through space and time.


I shift my eyes to the image below, and I see more, but things are quieter. I am far away; a witness in the distance. This is not a place I've ever set foot. The sounds of nature form an auditory backdrop in the same way that the mountain and distant trees and sky form the visual background.

Again, there is blue, and hints of red, but mostly all is grey and bleached and impersonal. As with the other, there is the sense of a steady movement forward, this time more leisurely - footsteps, gliding boats - but every bit as ephemeral.

"We are ghosts, hungry for something bigger than what our lips are kissing." -Anis Mojgani 

"Owl and Girl" by Iwao Akiyama

The owl cannot fly with a broken wing.

My teacup face angles toward the sky, searching in vain. There is a hole in my heart, my fingers interlaced with shadows. A face peers out from the void, asking all the hard questions, like how long ago did the sun set? Why didn't I notice it happen? And what color is the moon, anyway?

Two Landscapes by Umetaro Azechi

I've written once before about a work by the Japanese artist Umetaro Azechi. He was an avid lover of nature and mountain climber, and I wrote about his woodcut Mountain Man I.

His woodcuts are very distinct for its "simple and rustic" look (as the artist himself put it), unique approaches to depicting space (a sort of flattening in order to see everything at once from above, which reminds me of traditional Inuit prints and wall hangings), and cool, clear colors. The blog Funomena has a good article about discovering Azechi's work.

I thought these two woodcuts of mountains compared well together. In the first, everything seems to rise up. The white road curves slightly as it moves through a scattered handful of houses, toward a hill that seems like a great rolling wave. Puzzle pieces float on the surface of the wave's dip like broken ice. Behind the wave rises what seems to be a long-dormant volcano, The flattened tip of this tallest mountain bears a black and blue gash that peels down the side.

In the second woodcut, everything seems to pull down. A congregation of dwarfed hills attentively observe a house, which sits in a happy, little green and speckled pool. A few even smaller hills or pointed rocks descend into the white valley, edging closer to the house, like curious children.

What strikes me most in both of these prints is how much the mountains and structures seem alive and possessing human-like personalities, motivations, and relationships with each other. There is a great sweep of collective interactions taking place within the scene as a whole. These simple and still images are also folk tales and portraits of small communities.

Looking at these, I feel so small, but also so utterly welcomed.

"Snow Night at Honchodori" by Kobayashi Kiyochika

In this image I sense an urgency to escape winter's deep freeze. I hear the pounding of rapid footsteps in crunching snow. Horse and dog gallop side by side, leaving deep tracks. Both hold their heads up high and charge forward.

The people are not so brave. They hide their faces in the shadows of their umbrella and coach's folding head. The coach seems almost like its own living being. A disembodied caterpillar face with red lantern-eyes.

A street lamp is brilliantly reflected in the white snow, making the dark structures and looming mountains in the distance seem all that much more dramatic.

Cold can be such a sneaky specter. Even its visible ambassador snow appears so lovely and harmless. Powdery flakes dancing in the air. But appearances can be deceiving, and under a microscope, those falling specks have pointy edges and are as hard as ice.

[Baren] Exchange #63: Two Flower Prints

This is a part 2 of 2, highlighting a few of my favorite prints from [Baren] Exchange #63. I wrote about my print for this exchange - In the Tent With Bunny - last month. The technique for this exchange was "Moku-hanga in the tradition of Japanese printmaking". The theme was open. The paper size was 7.5" x 10".

Today I feature two prints of flowers, which I thought offered a particularly striking contrast with each other. The first is Narcissus by Andrew Stone. (He wrote about this print on his own art blog, which can be found here.) The second Rudbeckia by Abel Dewitz (whose website can be found here.) 

Stone's image is so bold with its arresting yellow background. The black outlines are broad yet articulate.  The flower's stem soars up assertively. New buds bide their time at the pinnacle beyond the frame, while the mature blossoms survey all that is below them, wide-eyed and fearless. 

Dewitz's flowers are completely different. They have no outlines, only shadows. They breezily sway over a misty horizon. They are past their prime with regards to blooming; the pedals that remain are brown and hang low. And yet, they are no less beautiful for their advanced age because with their withered pedals they have learned new and graceful poses for the artist to study. While Stone's flower effortlessly crosses the border of the picture-plane, Dewitz's have no border to cross. They dance in a scene that is quiet and mysterious in its hazy vastness. 

[Baren] Exchange #63: Three Landscapes

This is a part 1 of 2, highlighting a few of my favorite prints from [Baren] Exchange #63. I wrote about my print for this exchange - In the Tent With Bunny - last month. The technique for this exchange was "Moku-hanga in the tradition of Japanese printmaking". The theme was open. The paper size was 7.5" x 10".

Today I spotlight three landscapes that I especially enjoyed. Also, as is pretty common on this blog, everybody gets a haiku. 

This first print is The Mountain Is Out! by Achim Nicklis. In his comments he mentioned that it is Mt Rainier as seen during nice weather in Seattle. I love the simplicity of the composition, including the full bleed printing and the texture in the sky and mirrored in the water. Those who want to see more of his prints can check out the [Baren] exchange archives. 

It's a big, wide world
With far-flung oceans and skies. 
I focus on you. 

This second print is Painted Village by Anne van Oppen, which I was drawn to in no small way because I'm venturing more into white line printmaking myself. She used watercolors and painted/printed each section one at a time, in true Provincetown printmaking fashion. She also has some wonderful printmaking demonstration videos in collaboration with Lisa Toth which can be viewed on YouTube. 

I watch the houses 
Such happy colors 
This is the way life should be 

The third print is Moon Setting Over Red Barn by Bridget Pilip Murphy. I love the colors used for the layers of landscape receding back and the balance between the moon and barn. It is relaxing for me to look at this image. 

Rainbow horizon 
Seems the earth is a body 
With curves like my own 

"Sea of Japan" by Junichiro Sekino and "Georgetown Locks of C&O Canal" by Unichi Hiratsuka

I happened to be looking at both of these woodcuts this week, and thus came to contemplate the similarities. Both feature a composition with thick, diagonal bands that come in from both sides and meet in the center. What first grabbed my interest in both was these diagonal bands. They pull the viewer's gaze in, giving each scene a sense of gravity.

In Sekino's image, the bands fall below the center and the event taking place is violent, churning waters. The calamity of the rolling and spitting waves is further emphasized in comparison to the stillness in front of the bands and in the black part of the sea seen in the distant horizon. The bands themselves curve, bending to the water's fury. The diagonal lines do not connect, but rather, they slip past one another, leaving more space to accommodate their own movements with the angry sea. The rendering is delicate and the changes in layers of color is subtle, giving the whole scene a thoughtful air, despite the tumultuous subject.

In Hiratsuka's more stoic, yet equally bold image, the diagonal bands are solid black, straight, and connect with each other just above the center. Instead of acquiescing to an torrid sea, here, unbending planks direct the river. The waters held back are calm and airy, like skinny clouds, before they discharge under the barrier, strained into a neatly contained waterfall.

In both works, the bands depict something man-made, intended to in some way control or mitigate our interaction with a body of water. I come away from both contemplating power, predictability, and the balance between deference and restraint.

Durham Press Artists At The Print Center

This week I checked out The Print Center's exhibit featuring renowned artists who have recently created works at Durham Press. The exhibition description reads:

...they have built a reputation for producing complex and often large-scale screenprints, woodcuts and mixed media projects.

Indeed, that is exactly what I found. In this post I feature works by three of the artists, each of whom incorporated the element of woodcut into these large, complex images, and in a similar way. Specifically, they each used printed wood grain to add texture. 

The first image here is by Chitra Ganesh. You can view this and more works by her at Durham Press here, and her professional website here. The title is Architects of the Future - City Inside Her. To me, this image and others in the series definitely had a futuristic feel. The woman's floating head and strange sort of goggles with cords that wind back to both an upsidedown city in the sky and ancient structure cause me to imagine that she is plugged into some kind of virtual reality. The use of the wood block is, of course, to create the texture in the sky, red and swirling, reminiscent of either sunset or sunrise, either of which allude to changes, endings and beginnings. Seeing such an obvious example of the low-tech wood block juxtaposed with an image of unfamiliar technology, I cannot help but think, too, of the German Expressionist Blue Riders, whose intent was to make works firmly connected to both the past and the future. 


Next up is a work by Mickalene Thomas. You can view this and other works she made at Durham Press here, and her professional website here. The title is Deux Femmes Noires. As it says, two black women are the subject, naked, sleeping, and comfortably entwined. I imagine that the collaged environment where they have been placed describes more of a psychological state than any literal surroundings. The bits and pieces illustrate grass, trees, and other plants, sky, perhaps also some water. Again, wood block printing is used to add the texture of the grain to an entire symphony of patterns, textures, and layers. Bits of cloth from the original photo remain, though here it suggests that the couple lies on a blanket which has been spread out in an open and natural setting. The pieces are mismatched, cut apart, separated by peach-colored lines, suggesting rapid movement, the passage of time, flicks of faulty memory. Despite the surrounding chaos and limited perception, this clearing seems a peaceful oasis. 


This third and final image I wanted to feature is by Beatriz Milhazes. You can view this and other works she made at Durham Press here. I found no professional website, but here is the Wikipedia entry on this artist. This print is called Snake Dreaming. I feel the variety of textures in the fields of wood grain run parallel to the asymmetry of the colorful form in the center. Where I saw flower pedals, I now see slithering ribbons, and hear the vibrations of strings. The whole image is so deceptively balanced and prettily designed, it would be easy to miss the mystery. The longer I look, the more I feel I am being drawn into a portal to the unknown.