Nana Shiomi: 見立て百景 (その21)「雲」 (One Hundred Views of Mitate No.21: Clouds (Kumo))

Contemporary Woodblock Print

A fabulous print by Nana Shiomi: 見立て百景 (その21)「雲」 (One Hundred Views of Mitate No.21: Clouds (Kumo)). Pale clouds gather across a deep earthen-red sky, partly obscuring a small white moon above Shiomi’s characteristic ochre perspective grid.

• Year & Edition: 1999 · Ed. 5/10 (signed, titled & editioned in pencil).
• Series: 見立て百景 (One Hundred Views of Mitate) · No.21.
• 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 familiar form of clouds is enlarged and isolated against Shiomi’s highly structured pictorial space. Their soft, shifting forms contrast with the ordered grid beneath them, while the partially hidden moon adds another layer of depth to the image. 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]