Black Heaven was made while listening to my mother speak about the World War II bombing of Tokyo. As she remembered, I worked—each mark formed in the presence of her voice. Etching and drypoint are pressed into fragile Gampi paper, whose thin fibers register pressure, abrasion, and hesitation. The plate is bitten, burnished, erased, and returned to again and again, allowing damage and care to exist side by side. Gampi does not hold firmly; it absorbs softly. Memory enters the work not as image, but as touch, repetition, and the quiet persistence of what cannot be erased.
Medium: Etchings, hand-shredded silk, feathers, prints
Concept:
This series of etchings reinterprets The Crane Wife through a contemporary lens, exploring desire, possession, and the fragility of trust. A man rescues an injured crane, which becomes his wife and weaves silk under the condition he never watches. His growing greed betrays her, revealing her true form. Using etchings alongside hand-shredded silk, feathers, and prints, the work translates themes of love, loss, and transformation into a tactile, visual experience while reflecting on human impact, vulnerability, and the complex dynamics of care and exploitation.
Concept:
Inspired by Meoto Iwa—two sacred rocks in Japan bound by rope—Love Echo explores connection, interdependence, and the balance between unity and individuality. The print reflects the fragility and endurance of relationships, using presence, tension, and resonance as visual language. By evoking natural forms and symbolic gestures, it becomes a meditation on love as both sustaining and vulnerable, inviting viewers to consider the subtle dynamics that bind and separate us.
Concept:
The Seasons draws on Japanese and Chinese painting traditions, where the cycles of nature and passage of time are conveyed through observation, brushwork, and composition. Using Direct Gravure on Kitakata paper, I translate these sensibilities into a contemporary, process-driven practice. Layered textures, repeated marks, and tonal shifts evoke light, atmosphere, and seasonal change, allowing material and gesture to accumulate like memory. The work creates a dialogue between tradition and experimentation, connecting meditative engagement with nature to explorations of impermanence, rhythm, and the layered experience of time.