Cade Tompkins Projects featured a printmaking exhibition by a group of artists whose work expands the boundaries of mokuhanga, the traditional Japanese woodcut process. Mokuhanga is achieved with use of water-based inks, hand-printing techniques and Japanese-style printing papers. The prints selected for this show present contemporary imagery and vernacular. Some works adhere strictly to the traditional process and others combine techniques such as etching and hand-stitching.
Highlights include Yoonmi Nam’s Oishii, a masterfully minimal image of cut flowers arranged in an everyday drink carton; Daniel Heyman’s hand-printed book, Sing with a Lovely Voice, which presents testimonies of former inmates at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq; David Curcio’s MS.45, a nun with a gun, red lips and red nails; Stella Ebner’s silhouetted The Hunters which achieves a deep space with expert layering; Allison Bianco’s The Old Jamestown Bridge picturing the 90s dynamite explosion of the rickety Rhode Island landmark; and Hiroki Morinoue’s Dragonfly Pond, a vibrant pseudo-landscape that exploits the grain of the woodblock to stunning success.
Artists in the exhibition include Katie Baldwin, Allison Bianco, David Curcio, Stella Ebner, Kevin Frances, Takuji Hamanaka, Lois Harada, Daniel Heyman, Hiroki Morinoue, Yoonmi Nam, Serena Perrone, Eva Pietzcker, and April Vollmer.