Jacob Hashimoto has produced four new woodblock relief projects with Durham Press: Love’s Great Mystery, Ontological and Absolute; The Hashimoto Index I; and the diptych The Blurred, Mystical Affirmation of the Universe and The Calamitous, yet Normal Circumstance of the Universe. Together with Lemmata, the portfolio of etchings that Hashimoto completed at Durham Press in 2015, these new projects offer a sequential view of the artist’s process, and they continue to investigate such topics as the interactions between the handmade and the mechanized, as well as those between natural, digital, and personal landscapes.
While the Lemmata present spare, black-and-white images of that resemble the diagrams the artist formulates in advance of producing a kite-based wall works, these new projects evoke the kites themselves. Love’s Great Mystery, Ontological and Absolute is a structured, grid-like composition measuring 25 3/4 x 38 3/4 inches. Hashimoto positioned multicolor relief-printed “kites” within a blue wood-grain background—a self-referential nod to the production process. Each kite consists of several woodblocks that were shaped using a CNC (computer numerical control) router, and for this work, the artist placed the kites back into the negative spaces of a plywood sheet from which they were cut. The precise, programmed patterns and shapes of the kites contrast with the more natural texture of the plywood.
The Hashimoto Index I comprises ninety-six relief prints, each measuring 7 5/8 inches squared and featuring a circular kite at the center. Like with his installations and wall works, this catalog of variously patterned and colored shapes can be transformed into various innumerable compositions, either by the artist or the viewer. Hashimoto used the Index as components for the pair The Blurred, Mystical Affirmation of the Universe and The Calamitous, yet Normal Circumstance of the Universe, each 39 x 36 inches. Both works feature clusters of kites that seem to float across the white paper like clouds or smokestacks. Each kite is semi-transparent so that the pattern and structure of those printed behind it remains visible, compounding several visual layers and creating contours akin to topography. These new projects delve further into Hashimoto’s longstanding interest in landscape, contemplating how our tools for organizing and mapping space can yield spontaneous and unexpected results when filtered through the lens of individual experiences.
The four new projects are all published as editions: Love’s Great Mystery, Ontological and Absolute, as an edition of 27. The Hashimoto Index I, as an edition of 19. The Universe prints are available as a set or individually, and published in an edition of 37. For pricing and additional information, please contact us at sales@durhampress.com
