LIKE generations of Japanese traditional woodblock carver-cum-printers before him, Shoichi Kitamura sits cross-legged on the floor in front of his low, wooden workstation.
He is an island of quiet concentration, surrounded by a sea of ink-bottles, sheets of mulberry paper and other implements. With practised moves, he stacks freshly-inked images of whimsical nude figures between spritzed cardboard.
The scene looks like it should be set in an Edo period ukiyo-e print workshop, complete with tatami mats and shoji panels that filter the crisp spring light. Instead, it is taking place in the decidedly modern confines of a workshop at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI). And at a neat, nearby draughtsman's table in a corner of the room - no wizened master artist in a kimono - Hong Kong painter Wilson Shieh Ka-ho checks the proofs and refines designs for the original drawings.
The two men, match-made artistically by STPI's Osaka-born chief printer Eitaro Ogawa, have teamed up to create a series of woodblock prints that reproduce Shieh's trademark, delicate drawings in the gongbi (Ming dynasty-era fine-line brush painting) style, using the labour-intensive ukiyo-e process.
The collaboration has been two years in the brewing, and will culminate in an exhibition next year. In 2006, while doing a residency at STPI, Shieh asked Ogawa if there were printmakers in Japan still working in the Edo (1603-1867) ukiyo-e style. The answer was yes, and the two men happily hatched a plan to rope in Kyoto-based Kitamura to help them realise a woodcut print project.
Kitamura, 40, recounts that his first thoughts upon checking out Shieh's works on the Internet was: 'Wow, ukiyo-e!' The carver, who started training in the art form at the age of 23 under established names such as Akira Kurosaki and Osanu Hotta, found the distinct key lines in the Hong Kong artist's drawings similar to those in ancient ukiyo-e prints. Intrigued, he was eager to apply his skills to carving them.