MOKULITO | DESMAI  SERIES | 2022

I made the prints in this series, during a residency in Spain in November and December 2022. I found my subject of tree branches hanging over a lake, in a park near the studio. Desmai is the name of the trees in the Catalan language. In the work, I hoped to capture the feeling of the wind, allowing the beautiful Japanese paper to breathe.

The prints are mokulitos, a print technique developed in the 1970s by Professor Seishi Ozaku in Japan and popularized more recently by Polish artist Ewa Budka. I learned it from Ariadna Abadal at Art Print Residence, a fabulous printshop in Arenys de Munt, Barcelona, Spain.

The mokulito process adapts the principles of lithography but prints are made from a plywood surface rather than a stone or aluminum plate. It can combine the beautiful tonal gradations possible with lithography materials with the crisp cut marks of woodcut together in the same print. My first love in printmaking was lithography and I enjoyed the freedom of the markmaking possible in this process.