Medium: Mezzotint
Dimensions: 7 3/4 x 7 7/8 inches (Image) 13 x 12 5/8 inches (Sheet)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1967
Edition: of 40

Recommended by Nikki (Art Photographer / Marketing and Exhibitions Specialist):

In Tsuritani’s ‘Journey of the Rabbit Entertainer’, the person juggling and riding a unicycle is wearing a rabbit mask as they balance overtop lunar cycles underneath a wide sky. They seem to defy time, gravity, and basic human restrictions in their precarious act. It is humorous and a reminder of the intensity of a fast-paced lifestyle. Juggling everything on a razor’s edge has limitations (even if you feel closer to the sun) and comes with a great need for rest and a slower pace.

Medium: Mezzotint and chine-collé
Dimensions: 13 1/2 x 11 inches (image)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1985
Edition: of 15

Recommended by Paige: 
(Collections Manager / Marketing Coordinator)

This piece merges impeccable technique with expression of a feeling. The hands are beautifully detailed and blur upward to ambiguous peaks where the peoples' faces and bodies should be. I can see it is as reminder to not be too still, too settled, or risk becoming a bystander that forms the background of life.

Medium: Hand-colored etching with chine-collé
Dimensions: 4 x 4 inches (image)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1969
Date of impression: 2019
Edition: of 20

Recommended by Catherine (Collections Specialist / Gallery Associate):

The symbolism within Mariko Ando's illustrative etchings reveals deeply unifying and poignant narratives, told through her animal subjects. Surrounded by thorny roses, the rabbit is attentively watching a gently floating feather, ready to catch it with their nimble fingers before it falls into the thorns. I see this as a reminder to seek softness and tenderness in my life, even when faced with the threat of pain, while the blood red roses call to my mind the often beautiful and life-affirming nature of painful experiences.

Medium: Mezzotint
Dimensions: 15 5/8 x 15 5/8 inches (Image) 20 3/4 x 20 3/8 inches (Sheet)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1967
Date finished: 2020
Edition: of 40

Recommended by Paige:

(Collections Manager / Marketing Coordinator)

This piece expresses how I often feel when I am out of place in a new place. Traveling far from home or starting over somewhere new can be a surreal experience; sometimes you pause and wonder, how did I get here? Or why am I here? Leaving can feel like stepping off a cliff into the unknown, represented here by total black. But she hasn't fallen, she might even be floating, elevating to something greater: ascending.

Medium: Color relief print
Dimensions: 4 x 4 inches (block) 6 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches (sheet)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1924 - 2000
Date: 1972
Edition: 151
Reference: HM  #399

Recommended by Rebecca (Gallery Associate):

Haku Maki was an incredibly innovative printmaker, adding cement to the foundation of the printing matrix after cutting his woodblocks. This unique craft puts his work in conversation with contemporary printmakers such as Carol Summers (American, 1925 - 2016), or in tandem with Hiroyuki Tajima (Japanese, 1911 - 1984) who also used cement, or Glen Alps (American, 1914 - 1996) who used household paint additives such as ground walnut shells and Durham's Rock Hard Putty. Haku Maki's small prints from around 1960, like this one, were abstractions of Kanji characters. Using a thicker paper in 1963, helped captured the deeper embossing and accentuated the sculptural and textural qualities. His small prints are gems with dashes of color.

Medium: Color relief print with embossing
Dimensions: 5 3/8 x 3 5/8 inches (block) 6 x 4 1/4 inches (sheet)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1924 - 2000
Date finished: 1970s

Recommended by Paige (Collections Manager / Marketing Coordinator):

A humble, small piece, this work by Haku Maki is magical to me. It shows an amazing knowledge of the simple things. The embossing is subtle but complex and reminds us how much can be done just within the paper even before adding anything on top of it. The graphics are clear and uncomplicated but looking at the passages where the color opens to the white paper, or the richness of the indigo ink and shimmer of silver, there is so much to enjoy. A complex little poem in itself.

Recommended by Paige (Collections Manager / Marketing Coordinator):

Kouki Tsuritani’s ‘Pulcinella’ is a brilliant version of the cunning, rebel character I adore. The use of mezzotint accents the character perfectly with its darkness emphasizing his severity and the softness building mystery. This Pulcinella is composed and stoic with his prominent nose and just slits in the mask to reveal his eyes. There is so much to explore in Pulcinella’s gaze, the town on his hat and collar, and the moon’s reflection cradled in his arms. 

Medium: Etching, collagraph, relief, chine-collé
Dimensions: 9 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1967
Date finished: 1998
Edition: of 30

Recommended by Nikki (Fine Print Photographer & Content Publisher):

"Collagraph is a medium that became popular in the ‘60s after synthetic adhesives and plastics became more readily available. Artists from all over the world were invited to visit the studio of Glen Alps in Seattle, WA to try out the process of gluing substrates, scribing marks into the dried substrates, and printing the results as intaglio plates. This relatively new medium has continued its popularity  in the studios of contemporary artists, like Akiko Taniguchi. In ‘Atom’, Taniguchi is using texture and layering on her collagraph to pull the viewer into her 10x8 inch world of abstraction. In it, viewers get to explore the word ‘atom’ within complimentary red and green hues and explosive almond shapes. Every square inch of the print is delightfully filled with new and interesting textures that only collagraph can offer."

Medium: Etching and aquatint
Dimensions: 15 3/4 x 23 1/2 inches (image)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1957
Edition: of 35
Condition: Some creases at lower left away from image.

Recommended by Nikki (Fine Print Photographer & Content Publisher):
"Starfish are symbolic of divine and endless love. These celestial beings sweep the background of Asahi’s highly technical etching. The little blue-eyed starfish serve as helpful and loving guides as the central female figure pours out the ocean from a shell as she sits on the back of a flying dragon. There is an energy to the piece, despite the artist including only tiny pops of color in the eyes and small details of each creature. Instead, linework and shape build the composition’s movement and playfulness. Each line etched into the plate is carefully scratched to give swirling loops to the water, striking contrast to the dragon scales, and delicate curves on the woman’s body. A visual boost of warm and energetic feelings."

Medium: Woodblock
Dimensions: 20 7/8 x 15 inches
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1940
Date finished: 2004
Edition: of 30

Recommended by Emma (Marketing & Communications Manager):
"Aoki's work often focuses on human interaction and human connection - or lack thereof. Amidst his many works featuring crowds of busy people and missed connections, Aoki has delivered this beautiful portrayal of two figures facing each other, stopped in time. With emphatically oversized arms, the figures demonstrate the incredible intimacy and tenderness of simple human touch. Though the figures have no facial features, the piece evokes the disarming sensation of staring directly into someone else's eyes. All that cannot be explained about human emotion seems to rest in the quiet space created between them." 

Series: Holes for Loneliness Games
Medium: Etching, aquatint
Dimensions: 10 1/4 x 10 1/2 inches (image) 15 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches (sheet)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1986
Date finished: 2012
Edition: of 20

Recommended by Nikki (Fine Print Photographer & Content Publisher):
"The level of technical detail in this etching is intricate - from each character’s particular facial expression to the curtains, hanging plants, mirror, and archway tile designs. Takeda is so good at taking simple everyday things like drinking coffee at a coffee shop and turning them into interesting shadow box scenes. The viewer can’t help but look at each of the people in this crowded room and wonder what they are all thinking behind their wide eyes. The only character not looking at one another or at themselves in the mirror is the person directly in front of the viewer. Rather than participating in the gossip or chatter, this person is rolling their eyes and looking up at the ceiling, while they drink their coffee."

Medium: Etching, aquatint
Dimensions: 10 5/8 x 20 3/8 inches (image) 14 x 25 1/4 inches (sheet)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1986
Date finished: 2015
Edition: of 15

Recommended by Sam (Owner & Director):
"Contemporary Japanese artist Azumi Takeda's etching Full, Full, Full is part of a wonderful series showing groups of people waiting, engrossed in various activities, or, as in this case, the artist focuses on the detritus left behind that references what they had been doing. There is order with the placement of the disparate objects, that speaks about each of the individuals that is no longer in the room. Takeda's use of the etching and aquatint process, is perfect for the detail required."

Medium: Lithograph
Dimensions: 15 3/4 x 23 3/4 inches (image) 19 3/4 x 27 1/2 inches (sheet)
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1961
Date finished: 2017
Edition: of 30

Recommended by Rebecca (Gallery Manager):
"Although now a favorite artist of mine, I originally found Keisuke Yamamoto's lithographs to be a bit austere. It wasn't until I took the time to continue looking that my experience of the scene transformed. Now I feel welcomed into the moment. I long to sit in the chair, to feel the breeze enter the room through the window, and to be warmed by the light. The artist has impeccable technique from the drawing stage to the printing of the lithograph. To watch him sharpen a litho pencil is to understand his precision. Through exquisite rendering, Yamamoto brings to life a place and a moment that I long to experience."