Reception: Monday, March 16, 5-7 PM

Moku hanga is the Japanese term for woodblock print (moku means wood and hanga means print), the same method used by great Japanese ukiyo-e printmakers like Hiroshige and Hokusai. In 2005, Northampton-based illustrator Annie Bissett took a three-day Japanese woodblock printmaking class at Snow Farm in Williamsburg and discovered a passion for woodblock.

While Annie's woodblock prints are created using ancient Japanese methods, her subject matter is distinctly 21st century and American. Many of her prints are map-based images, created from satellite images found online. Over intricately carved topographies, the artist adds texts, symbols, and imagery to tell a layered story of the complicated history of human impact, for better or for worse, upon these places. Annie's prints cover wide ground, from religion's great prophets and the wars in Iraq and Darfur, to American history and immigration, to the challenges of quieting one's own mind.

In the fall of 2008, Annie had a solo show at Cullom Gallery in Seattle, a gallery that specializes in Japanese and Japanese-influenced printmakers, and she recently had a print accepted in the Boston Printmaker's 2009 Biennial Show. She has taught moku hanga at Zea Mays Printmaking in Florence.