The Four Elements - Earth 2. Japanese Woodblock Print

The earth element represents perseverance and material achievement, realism and natural life. Here the soil is cracked, a reference to the complementarity of the hearth and water elements The prints are realized following the process of the Japanese woodblock print. They are inspired by botanical illustrations, surrealist paintings, cartoons and ink comics. I need to connect, explore and map social meanings, and cultural symbols. I often use and recombine essential symbols, used and understood by many cultures around the world over time. The four natural elements (fire, water, wind, earth), the cosmos and stars, time and space, the sun and moon, different types of landscapes (the desert, the jungle, the forest, the grassland), and animals, especially the ones with a strong symbolic meaning (e.g. snails, snakes, toads, etc). I play with these symbols sometimes interpreting and recombining them in a surrealistic way. Each wooden block is like a specific character in a symbolic alphabet. They’re recombined to create a composition and printed with water ink on thin Japanese calligraphic paper, or on thicker acid-free art paper. Water ink is used to create semitransparent colours, creating a collage of overlaid shapes. Occasionally, high-pigmented Japanese watercolours and Japanese metallic watercolours are used in the post-production phase to emphasize specific details. There is only one copy for print and they are grouped in small series around the same concept and theme.