Scots-Japanese prints bring diverse depth to the floating world

The work in this show by 13 artists (from Fife Dunfermline Printmakers Workshop), who have collaborated with three Japanese papermakers from the celebrated Mino region of the country, is certainly deserving of the description “artisan”.

These are experts who have honed their skills, inheriting knowledge from past generations.

Japan is famed for its craftsmanship in printmaking, woodworking, ceramics and toolmaking. It is the former that is perhaps the best known of these skills, as it has presented the western world with images known collectively in Japan as Ukiyo-e (the floating world). Papermaking is an important part of Japan’s craft heritage and here three celebrated exponents — Yukiyo Terada, Masashi Sawamura and Takanori Senda — have made different types of paper using traditional, non-mechanical methods, involving mulberry pulp (kozo), fresh running water and a bamboo mould.

Historically the use of such papers has been widespread, ranging from clothing to origami, but here it finds its ultimate use as the basis for a series of diverse prints from a number of highly-talented artists, usually with distinctive Scottish subject matter.

Aine Scannell’s Selkie (an etching and wood intaglio) is printed on Senda’s paper and shows the human-seal hybrid floating in an aquamarine sea. It’s a delicate but bold image like others here, including Bill McKechnie’s Adrift, a series of abstract forms against a blue ground printed on Terada’s paper.

Catherine King’s Connections shows three bridges that now span the Forth at Queensferry. King says that the special quality of Senda’s paper gave the work “depth and luminosity”. One of the richest aspects of this show is its documentary aspect: publications, tools and equipment used in the papermaking process have been arranged in thoughtful displays and a video and other material allows the mysteries of traditional printmaking to be unpicked. There’s enough here to suggest more ambitious and diverse future collaborations.

Until December 9