Tracing the Grain: Locating the life of the tree in the woodblock
type: CreativeWork
description: The grain of trees evident in both woodblocks and prints are an under-acknowledged record of aesthetic co-production between human artists and more-than-human beings. Whilst there is literature centred on the relief woodcut print and the resulting visual communication, there is a significant gap in the consideration of the woodblock. Usually seen as a matrix for the dissemination of written language and imagery as prints, there has been little exploration of the woodblock as a vehicle to communicate the presence of our relationship with more-than-human counterparts. Analysing extant woodblocks to inform creative practice-led research processes of cutting, inking and printing, I present new knowledge about the woodblock as a subject with agency inscribed with material histories. Tracing information of human and more-than-human mark-making within fragments can reveal multiple stories of life and wear over time. Drawing on practices based in Japan and Mongolia, I locate continuous engagement with woodblocks as communicators of agentic enaction and as sacred records. Woodblock printmaking is investigated as an exploratory vehicle to illuminate the unseen histories of material remnants as stories that matter as a part of naturecultures. By finding evidence of the lives of trees in woodblocks, I investigate and respond to the temporal dissonance between the slowness of growth within the wood in contrast to the speed of contemporary images. This thesis questions the material presence of multiple species evident within the woodblock as a record of life and our entangled interdependence living and communicating with trees.
abstract: The grain of trees evident in both woodblocks and prints are an under-acknowledged record of aesthetic co-production between human artists and more-than-human beings. Whilst there is literature centred on the relief woodcut print and the resulting visual communication, there is a significant gap in the consideration of the woodblock. Usually seen as a matrix for the dissemination of written language and imagery as prints, there has been little exploration of the woodblock as a vehicle to communicate the presence of our relationship with more-than-human counterparts. Analysing extant woodblocks to inform creative practice-led research processes of cutting, inking and printing, I present new knowledge about the woodblock as a subject with agency inscribed with material histories. Tracing information of human and more-than-human mark-making within fragments can reveal multiple stories of life and wear over time. Drawing on practices based in Japan and Mongolia, I locate continuous engagement with woodblocks as communicators of agentic enaction and as sacred records. Woodblock printmaking is investigated as an exploratory vehicle to illuminate the unseen histories of material remnants as stories that matter as a part of naturecultures. By finding evidence of the lives of trees in woodblocks, I investigate and respond to the temporal dissonance between the slowness of growth within the wood in contrast to the speed of contemporary images. This thesis questions the material presence of multiple species evident within the woodblock as a record of life and our entangled interdependence living and communicating with trees.
author: Laffan , Julian
language: en_AU
date published: 2025
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:54:51Z
provider: Australian National University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Australian National University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733766683