Nana Shiomi: 見立て百景 (その18)「車坂」 (One Hundred Views of Mitate No.18: Wheel (Kuruma-zaka))

Contemporary Woodblock Print

A fabulous print by Nana Shiomi: 見立て百景 (その18)「車坂」 (One Hundred Views of Mitate No.18: Wheel (Kuruma-zaka)). A monumental wheel dominates the composition, tilted dramatically across Shiomi’s characteristic perspective-drawn ochre boards. Its circular form and radiating spokes cut against the rigid geometry of the floor, while the deep earthen-red background gives the image a wonderful sense of depth and theatricality. The wheel appears almost caught in motion, transforming a familiar object into something strange, sculptural and monumental. 🛞

• Year & Edition: 1999 · Ed. 5/10 (signed, titled & editioned in pencil). Shiomi’s own catalogue confirms Wheel (Kuruma-zaka) as No.18 of the series, published in 1999 in an edition of 10.
  
• Series: 見立て百景 (One Hundred Views of Mitate) · No.18.
  
• Medium: Woodblock.
  
• Dimensions: Sheet H: 46.00 cm × W: 46.00 cm (Image H: 34.00 cm × W: 34.00 cm).
• Condition: Mint. Well stored over the years.
• Notes: 見立て百景 (One Hundred Views of Mitate) is Nana Shiomi’s series of one hundred woodblock prints, begun in 1998 and completed in 2016. Shiomi presents familiar objects, motifs and symbols within a distinctive visual world of earthen reds, yellow ochres and sharply receding perspective. Mitate (見立て) centres on seeing something familiar in a new way, and here the everyday form of a wheel is dramatically enlarged and isolated. Its curved, rotating form contrasts with the ordered grid beneath it, turning a simple object into an intriguing study of movement, perspective and reinterpretation. Shiomi records the series as water-based woodcuts, printed by baren, each in an edition of only 10.

About the Artist

Nana Shiomi (b. 1956, Osaka) is a Japanese printmaker best known for her 見立て百景 (One Hundred Views of Mitate) series. Trained at Tama Art University and the Royal College of Art, Shiomi combines traditional Japanese woodblock methods with a contemporary approach to familiar cultural motifs, exploring ideas of reflection, reversal and mitate - seeing one thing through another. Her work is held by the Victoria & Albert Museum and British Museum, and in 2025 she was awarded Life Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in recognition of her contribution to printmaking. [ ← View All Works by Nana Shiomi]