STIK (B. 1979)

The figure group in Onbu is an interpretation of a detail from Hiroshige’s The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road, of a figure giving a piggyback at a crossing on the Seto river. This project was conceived in collaboration between the artist and the Hiroshige Museum in Tokyo.

This unique variant in pink with mother of pearl dust was created as a special gift from the artist to the present owner. This one-off artist’s proof was gifted in response to a running joke with the close friend who always asked Stik, known for his strict colour palette, for ‘a pink, sparkly one’.

The published edition of Onbu was printed using traditional Japanese pigments in four colour variants: Blue, Grey, Green and Pink, each in an edition of 15, at the Adachi Institute in Tokyo, which was established to preserve traditional Japanese woodcut techniques.