Jacek Machowski - Fire from the sky...

Contemporary Woodblock Print

• Year & Edition: 2026 · Ed. of 31 in this colourway (signed, titled & editioned in pencil).
  
• Medium: Woodblock. Printed from two cherry-veneered plywood blocks using powdered water-based pigments with a binder of nori and nikawa glue, with mica.
  
• Paper: Woodstock Betulla 225 g/m² machine-made paper.
  
• Dimensions: Sheet H: 25.40 cm × W: 19.20 cm.
  
• Condition: Mint. Direct from the artist’s studio.
• Notes: Machowski began developing Fire from the sky... at the end of 2025 while sketching a design for a nengajō (年賀状), a Japanese New Year card. Thinking about the wars and political tensions that had defined the year, the sketch developed into what he describes as an “apocalyptic landscape”, and he decided to continue it as an independent work instead. Machowski returned to the design through early 2026 as conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, alongside tensions around Taiwan, made its subject feel increasingly current. He eventually completed the print for the 104th [Baren] Print Exchange, producing an edition of just 31 impressions in this colour scheme. His stated hope is that the image will eventually become outdated - that the conflicts which informed it will end. Technically, the print is remarkably economical, using only two blocks to create the layered landscape, graduated sky and falling white forms. *Delivered in presentation slip.

About the Artist

Jacek Machowski (b. 1983) is a Polish printmaker and educator who has become an important European voice in contemporary mokuhanga (木版画). Trained at the University of Rzeszów, Japanese water-based woodblock is central to his practice, combining traditional hand-printing with techniques such as bokashi gradation, karazuri embossing and kirazuri mica printing. In 2026, he completed a doctorate devoted to adapting mokuhanga to Polish materials and conditions, and his work has appeared in more than one hundred exhibitions in Poland and abroad, including major international exhibitions in Nara and Echizen.