When The East Wind Blows

Six encounters with Japanese Woodblock Printing

Embassy of Japan, London in collaboration with Rabley Gallery

2nd June - 28th August

Exhibition is by appointment only, so please book your visit HERE

The Embassy of Japan will be closed to the public 1–14 July for the Japanese Election. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

 

Katsutoshi Yuasa | VR London Live Walk 1 | 2021 | Water-based woodcut on hand-made thick Japanese paper | Signed and editioned by the artist | Edition of 10 | 62 x 94.5 cm | £1,800

 

We're pleased to announce that Katsutoshi Yuasa will be exhibiting at the Embassy of Japan, London, as part of 'When The East Wind Blows', a group exhibition with Nana Shiomi, Prudence Ainslie, Sara Lee, Paul Furneaux RSA, and Rebecca Salter PRA. The exhibition will follow the six artists' encounters with Japanese woodblock printmaking, and how each has been influenced in their practice by this medium.

Woodblock printing is a traditional Japanese printmaking technique, which entails carving into a woodblock and manually applying ink, to physically print the work by hand. A baren, a tool made of bamboo, is typically used to manually push the paper and woodblock together, transferring ink without the use of a printing press.

 

Katsutoshi Yuasa | CMYK 3 | 2016 | Water-based woodcut print, using 4 woodblocks with 4 colours | Signed and editioned by the artist | Edition of 10 | 30 x 44.5 cm | £1,000

 

Katsutoshi Yuasa will be exhibiting works from his VR London Live Walk and CMYK series, exploring how woodblock printing can be used to reinterpret the personal and public digital image. Katsutoshi's practice is rooted in the exploration of the photograph and what it means to us, merging tradition with modernity, spending weeks translating the digital image into carved wood.

 

Katsutoshi Yuasa | CMYK 4 | 2016 | Water-based woodcut print, using 4 woodblocks with 4 colours | Signed and editioned by the artist | Edition of 10 | 44.5 x 30 cm | £1,000

 

Speaking to Meryl Ainslie from Rabley Gallery about his practice, Katsutoshi considers woodblock printing "a resistance to time" in it's incredibly involved process, believing that "taking the time to look and think over time is crucial for the future relationship between humans and nature."

In his recently released book 'Katsutoshi Yuasa: Imagemaker', Katsutoshi writes about the process of creating his CMYK works. As in the series' name, the only colours used for printing the woodblocks were the four CMYK colours. Katsutoshi explains; "If you think of ukiyo-e, woodblock prints usually create a chiselled block for each colour, which are to be burnished one upon another. However, I only used the four CMYK colours, like an inkjet printer".

 

Katsutoshi Yuasa | VR London Live Walk 3 | 2021 | Water-based woodcut on hand-made thick Japanese paper | Signed and editioned by the artist | Edition of 10 | 62 x 94.5 cm | £1,800

Katsutoshi also delves into the inspirations for his VR London Live Walk series, created during the Covid lockdowns, where 'virtual tours' of spaces and cities were trending online. Katsutoshi shares that, while watching these tours of London, he "could not feel the real emotions experienced with travel". For Katsutoshi, recreating the images as woodblock prints became a way to feel this sense of adventure and fulfil his nostalgia without being able to physically travel; "I travelled in my head as I carved into the plywood, and as a result, I was able to enjoy a virtual tour in my brain."

'Katsutoshi Yuasa: Imagemaker' is now available to purchase on our website as a hardback!

We're excited for Katsutoshi to be exhibiting alongside this selection of incredibly talented printmakers, who each approach woodblock printing in their own way, pushing the boundaries of the technique to create new, incredible effects in their work.

 

Nana Shiomi | A Fan With A View | 2025 | Woodcut on hand-made Japanese paper | 28 x 38 cm 

 

Nana Shiomi's woodcuts reference iconic imagery from ukiyo-e tradition to explore her own Japanese culture through familiar, everyday imagery, such as the tatami floor which features in much of her work. Shiomi plays with composition, manipulating the objects and figures in her images to add a surreal, dreamlike feeling to her pieces.

 

Prudence Ainslie | IRORI - SORA (sunken earth - sky) | 2022 | Woodblock print on Nishinouchi natural paper 60gsm | 32 x 26 cm 

 

Prudence Ainslie experiments with dimension in her prints, specifically focusing on architectural and interior compositions, creating visual illusions within scenes, often by merging woodblock and archival digital print mediums into a singular piece.

 

Sara Lee | Abate | 2020 | Woodcut print | 45 x 35 cm 

 

Sara Lee's landscapes prove the versatility of the woodcut printing process, creating these incredibly soft, subtle expanses. Sara Lee's vast scenes are peacefully undefined, working with woodcut techniques to explore a love of landscape and the experience of simply existing within the environment.

 

Paul Furneaux RSA | Sumi Bleed:RAIN | 2024 | Mokuhanga woodblock print | 56 x 45 cm

 

Paul Furneaux's woodblocks celebrate texture, colour, and shape, collaged together in a way reminiscent of city walls, plastered with posters and graffiti, battered by the elements, or patchwork textiles threaded together. The collaged appearance of Paul Furneaux's prints, and their abstract nature, exemplify how woodblock printing can be embraced as a technique for the abstract, as well as the representative and illustrative!

 

Rebecca Salter PRA | Celest 2 | Woodcut print | 30 x 32 cm 

As with the softness of Sara Lee's pieces, Rebecca Salter's woodcuts explore the ability to create subtle, fluid works with the woodblock technique. The minimal, muted tones of Rebecca's woodcut pieces, paired with her embrace of the wood grain texture, are both grounded yet ethereal, like smoke stains on a wall, or shadows behind a curtain.

 

'When the East Wind Blows' runs from 2nd June - 28th August 2025. The exhibition is strictly by appointment only, so please book your visit HERE

 

 

'When The East Wind Blows'

Six Encounters with Japanese Woodblock Printing

featuring Katsutoshi Yuasa, Nana Shiomi, Prudence Ainslie, Sara Lee, Paul Furneaux RSA, Rebecca Salter RSA

Embassy of Japan, London, in collaboration with Rabley Gallery

 

Opening Dates:

2nd June - 28th August

Private View 25th June, by invitation only

 

Embassy of Japan, 101 - 104 Piccadilly, London, W1J 7JT

Book your visit HERE