Goen
Watercolour woodblock print on Japanese washi made in the summer of 2026 with sumi ink, indigo, malachite, cinnabar, ochre, mica, copper, gold, verdigris pigments.
Mokuhanga on kozo washi from Japan, 4 passes, 2 blocks, edition of 5, 30 x 20 cm.
Goen is inspired by the planetary parade that was visible in the winter night sky of 2025. I saw all seven planets alongside the moon one January evening gazing out to the moors. It was a breath-taking sight, as an arch of Mars, Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Mercury, the moon and Venus aligned from east to west in the inky sky. To mark this rare celestial event, I created a small edition of 5 woodblock prints, hand-embellished with earth and mineral pigments on a ground of sumi and indigo ink on washi paper.
Goen is a Japanese concept referring to a fateful connection between people, things of places, suggesting that encounters are the result of invisible interconnected threads. This print is an homage to Kate MacDonagh's Borderless print of 2020 that she created for the Mokuhanga Sisters Borderless scroll artist's book.