Fukushima 4

The Manga culture ("whimsical drawings" or "impromptu sketches") can be traced to the early 8th century, the modern types of publications developed since the end of world war II. The impact of style, especially present in animation is maybe comparable to the influence of japanese prints end oft he 19th century.  The images are in some way representative for the young  japanese, and the idea followed in this piece has been to remind on the situation following the destruction of life quality after Fukushima. Starting point has been Picasso’s portrait linos from the early 60s, here L’espagnole.  In the reduction approach a beige background is applied, and two plates brown and black are used.

The present manga style is indeed representative for some japanese girls. This extends in its global extension to export of the styles (Japan pop culture festivals), http://cyberpopculture.wordpress.com/fashion/japanese-culture-japanese-fashion-tokyo-and-the-individual-selfishness/:

Even stories in brown tones exists, resembling Picasso’s prints:

http://animemanga4all.blogspot.de/2010_12_01_archive.html

As the major impact of the Fukushima event is uncontrolled leaking out of radioactive material contaminating local sites and extending worlwide. Facing invisible radiation the trefoil symbol (Berkeley 1946) is well known, and has been amended in 2007 by an additional symbol indicating the risk of death,  with the option of running away…

The design started with a girl’s face, trefoils and the japanese word for „radiation“

on a beige background the face is printed in brown and dark brown. Alternatively the two plates are printed on light brown paper.

 

 Instead of a third dark plate a gradient inking from blue to red is preferred, as it indicates radiation from above, and the blue colour relates to the marine costume.

The intention is to remind on the responsibility for the young generation forced to live with radiation.

Fukushima 3

In 1979 the renowned manga artist Shigeru Mizuki  (*1922, he designed a Hitler biography in 1971)

produced a set of illustrations on the harsh working conditions at the Fukushima power plant (The reality of subcontract workers). The infos came from Kunio Hori, and the material was published by Asahi Graph (http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201206090008). Replicas were exposed 2012 at the Maruki gallery for the Hiroshima panels (http://www.aya.or.jp/~marukimsn):

Radiation protection suits now termed NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) suit or bunny suit, are well known since the various contamination episodes with nuclear materials, earlier episodes due to gas warfare, and more recently to biohazards from natural or synthetic infectives. They are included in various games, just that people get used to them as early as possible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_suit).

  A special type is the space outfit, the astronaut, here in a 1962 silkscreen by the Berlin artist Werner Mühlbrecht (*1930), looking determined for actions in a space lab or going to the moon, a sort of hero. Werner taught me drawing in space. 

 Now think of the hundreds and thousands of workers involved in moving contaminated materials as in Chernobyl, Fukushima, Los Alamos and all the sites on earth remaining contaminated. See here some recent pics from the Fukushima site used for the lino.

The plant and the counter have been omitted for a more universal approach.

The drawing shows that reflections in the helmet’s glass and the contours are the main elements. 

In the colour reduction a question has been the face underneath the reflections. Two variants have been tried, either with or without background colour. Both seem possible.

The contour plate has been inked with a gradient.

 

 Printing on a second colour provides the opportunity to indicate structures related to particles again related to contamination.

Fukushima 2

Hokusai’s Under a Wave off Kanagawa, „also known as The Great Wave or simply The Wave, is an ukiyo-e print, published sometime between 1830 and 1833. It is Hokusai's most famous work, and one of the best recognized works of Japanese art in the world. It depicts an enormous wave threatening boats off the coast of the prefecture of Kanagawa. While sometimes assumed to be a tsunami, the wave is, as the picture's title notes, more likely to be a large okinami ("wave of the open sea")“, text from wiki.

The great waves of the 2011 tsunami were well above security limits, see the recent documentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFD0VJPIKmU :

 

One of the scenes of the waves smashing  Miyako harbour (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-zfCBCq-8I) shows a boat lifted on top of a wave, then pressed underneath a bridge. 

In the boat underneath the Great Wave people in the boat are threatened, but most boats in the tsunami were unoccupied and out of control.

The wave belongs to a series of 36 views of Mount Fuji. The Mount is one of the 3 holy mountains and indeed a particular place visited by several hundred thousand people each year. But will Fukushima become a place visited as the ghost city of Pripjat near Chernobyl?

Having seen the original Wave in small 25 x 37 cm with its delicate drawing, the adaptation from wood to lino had some material limitations with the instability of the material at a similar size of 27 x 28 cm. 

The Wave print consisted of 6 plates. As I have no boats and clouds I have cut 4 with one used twice for the dark sky around the power plant. The first plate provides the sky colours and the contours of the plant:

This is followed by plate 2 with the light blue shades of the waves and boat shadows

The blue shades are plate 3

The final plate 4 provides the contours

Note that as in my recent print Camaret 2 depth comes from two different contour plates (http://hans-bretagne.blogspot.de/2014/02/camaret-2.html):

The contours of the plant are introduced with plate 1 with a light inking and a pochoir

Various colour depths and shapes can be achieved

 A pale yellow version is close to the original Wave print

Fu69

Fukushima 1

For the third anniversary of the Fukushima desaster a suite of several prints is being made. The first is to remind that the damaged plant still is leaking and contaminating the world. It has become a „Magic Place“ initiating various actions, investigations and decisions, some yet to come. The site itself is well documented by various high-resolution images (http://www.infiniteunknown.net), and as a suitable view for me I chose one of the  now classical aerial views:

A wikipedia diagram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fukushima_I_nuclear_accidents_diagram.svg) has been a source of interpretation:

The NOAA-chart illustrates the continuing spill in the Pacific

When the sketch has been set up

I came across Picasso’s lino still life „under the lamp“ (1962, age 80).  The recent purchase of the British Museum including various proof stages can be seen at http://vimeo.com/81511940. In a MOMA version of the linoprint the green colour is almost black and I thought this to be the perfect setting of the power station’s  situation. The aesthetics of this still life reflects my feeling for the place from above.

 The released light stands for radiation, the red shadow zones for heat, the objects (power plant elements) are black&white.

Picasso’s reduction lino technique is well shown in Nick Morleys blog (http://linocutboy.com/picasso-and-the-linocut/) in a 2 min video (http://vimeo.com/32920527 ). I decided to use 3 plates instead of reduction to keep the chance of printing variations later on. The procedure largely adheres to a reduction approach, but some yellow-red overlaps have been introduced not possible with successive cutting.

The first yellow plate b_1s is followed by the second red plate b_2s.

The third black plate includes the lettering MAGIC PLACES in a geometric type (http://www.ffmark.com/). These types reflect a pure design based on a mathematical approach, just as one hopes for a complex system like a nuclear plant or a reprocessing facility. 

see all 3 plates