Masato Arikushi: The Craft Behind the Print

Behind many of Canada's best-known woodblock prints stands a person whose name rarely appears on the label. He is a Japanese master block cutter and printer named Masato Arikushi. Arikushi works in the traditional moku hanga method. He does not create his own original compositions. Instead, he translates paintings by other artists into carved wood and hand-applied ink. This is a much more demanding process than simple copying. A single print can require as many as seven separate blocks, thirty different colours, and twenty-seven individual impressions. Arikushi often uses a technique called graduated printing. In this technique, he varies the amount of ink on a block so that a colour shifts gradually across the printed surface, instead of sitting flat. Since 1981, he has done this exacting work for the painter Takao Tanabe. He has turned paintings such as Gogit Passage, Queen Charlotte Islands into detailed multi-block prints. Later, he also began a nine-year collaboration with the painter Mary Pratt. In both partnerships, the artists gave Arikushi finished paintings and needed to guide him very little. After studying a source image closely, he made his own decisions about carving and colour. Over time, his own artistic instincts became visible within the finished prints.