Literature

Durham Press is pleased to announce their latest project with artist Jacob Hashimoto, a

series of three prints titled This ever-fragile balance. These works combine woodblock and

screenprint on handmade Japanese paper, each measuring 36 x 33 inches (91.44 x 83.82 cm)

and printed in an edition of 45.

In This ever-fragile balance, Hashimoto returns to the circular format ‘kites’ he began

working with at Durham Press that allow him to freely play with pattern and color in a

modular format. These kites reference the bamboo and paper kites Hashimoto uses in his

large-scale installation works, translating them into in a two-dimensional format as a series

of uniquely patterned woodblocks with a delicate woodgrain framework. They hold kinetic

energy while caught in place on the paper, defying what is possible in Hashimoto’s physically

suspended installations while still maintaining the illusion of gravity.  Kites which can now stand 

alone are still connected by strings, seeming to hold them together but which often become 

tangled as if the kites themselves have pulled them awry with their own entropy.

Kites float through space with semi-transparent inks which converge instead of collide, airy

even in their most condensed moments. Their paths are met by bold rectangles of color that

define each composition, compressing and extending space to create dramatically different

weights in these component parts. Crowded bands of blues and yellows become top heavy, like

a piston pushing down on the floating kites below. In another composition, thin lines delineate

a space full of breathing room even if it is still filled with a complex rectangle structure. This

ever-fragile balance fluctuates between density and lightness to find the midpoint where, if

but for a moment, both states can exist at once.

This ever-fragile balance, as well as other works with Jacob Hashimoto, are available directly

through Durham Press. For more information, please contact us at sales@durhampress.com.