Dialogue With Red (B) 1975

Hiroyuki Tajima made this print titled ‘Dialogue With Red (B)’ using woodblock printing techniques. Woodblock printing, or Mokuhanga, is a painstaking process of carving an image into a block of wood, inking the block, and then pressing it onto paper. In ‘Dialogue With Red (B)’ you can see how the material itself dictates the image. Tajima likely used multiple blocks, each carrying a different color or part of the design. Look closely, and you can see the subtle texture of the paper where the ink has been pressed, retaining the memory of the process and the grain of the wood. The precision needed for the registration of each color highlights the artist’s skill. The artwork's abstract forms and vibrant colors, achieved through a labor-intensive traditional method, merge the worlds of craft and fine art. In this way, Tajima elevates a traditional technique to express modern artistic ideas.