Description

2009. 576 x 435 mm paper size. Japanese woodblock print. Edition of 45 + 5 APs. Published by Other Criteria. With this new print, Hume refers to the artists of Western Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century whose work was influenced by the Japanese woodblock wrapping papers used to protect porcelain and other goods shipped over from the East. He sums up the piece as “two roses with a lilac area of disappointment”. The traditional and labour-intensive Ukiyo-e process involves cutting shina-ply wood blocks with Japanese chisels and moistening them with water and rice paste. Ink is then dabbed on and a maru-bake horse hair brush mixes it together. The handmade washi thin rice paper, which is made of 100% kozo fibre, a relation of hemp, and which has previously been dampened, is registered to the block and laid onto the inked surface. A paper disk, or baren, burnishes the paper to the block, printing the coloured ink into the paper. The inks are created directly from the pigments: Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Light, Pencil Clay and Ultramarine Violet, printed in that order and several times over to build colour intensity and luminosity.