The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 8, 2026

A horizontally oriented print on off-white paper features a dense, star-like form. Pointed leaf-like shapes radiate from a dark core of overlapping circles, containing patterns of muted blue and green rings. From the underside of the central form, thin vertical lines with teardrop shapes hang down. Sparse gray and blue specks scatter across the rectangular field, which sits within wide, clean margins.

Fern-gm-1

2015, printed 2021

Seiko Tachibana

(Japanese, 1946-)
Japan
intaglio, etching, aquatint, and spitbite on Rives BFK paper
Platemark: 20.2 x 35.2 cm (7 15/16 x 13 7/8 in.); Sheet: 49.7 x 66.2 cm (19 9/16 x 26 1/16 in.)
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 2022.429.1
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

When making this print, the artist Seiko Tachibana was inspired by the repeating reproductive patterns of ferns.

Description

Tachibana’s work combines Asian tradition with a modernist aesthetic through the exploration of shape, color, and spatial relationships. One of her primary explorations is that of fractals, or repeated patterns, an interest that brought her to a series of works on the self-replicating patterns of ferns. Here, she reduces the language of the fern to the simplicity of a circle, creating patterns that increase and decrease, from miniscule circular voids to commanding dark spheres, opaque to transparent.
  • {{cite web|title=fern-gm-1|url=false|author=Seiko Tachibana|year=2015, printed 2021|access-date=08 July 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2022.429.1