Biography
Andrea G. Artz is a German-born, London-based artist whose practice has emerged out of photography's expanded field to encompass installation, sculpture, photography, collage, and print. Originally trained as a portrait photographer, she holds an MFA from the University of Leeds and has developed an interdisciplinary approach that translates digital imagery into the traditional analogue technique of mokuhanga, Japanese water-based woodblock printing.
Artz's work centers on the human figure and its presence in space. Her recent practice focuses on site-specific installations featuring three-dimensional photographic portraits that are folded and constructed to create filigree, nearly weightless paper objects. This interest in the transformation of flat images into dimensional forms connects directly to her mokuhanga practice, where the relationship between the printed surface and the physical properties of Japanese paper becomes a medium for exploring presence and absence.
Her mokuhanga prints demonstrate a distinctive approach to the medium, using Japanese water-based woodcut techniques on fine washi papers such as Hosho Select. Her work 'Rise of the Tidal Island Queens,' exhibited at the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference in Echizen, Japan, exemplifies her integration of figurative imagery with the translucent, tactile qualities of traditional Japanese paper. She has also developed site-specific installations consisting of small paper sculptures, birch bark sculptures, and monoprints.
Artz has received significant institutional recognition. She was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship in 2018, one of the most prestigious artist residencies in the United States. Arts Council England funded her Virtual Reality work 'Ghost Weight,' and her solo exhibition 'Farewells' (2017) was awarded a grant by the European Centre for Creative Economy (ECCE).
Her exhibition history includes the Royal Academy of Arts, Towner Art Gallery, Charles Dickens Museum, Kunsthaus Hamburg, and the Palais des Arts in Marseille. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker and is held in the collections of the Charles Dickens Museum, the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Previously based in New York, Artz now works from London, where she continues to bridge digital and analogue processes through her mokuhanga-informed practice.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇩🇪Germany
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 110
Frequently Asked Questions
Andrea G. Artz is a German-born, London-based artist whose practice has emerged out of photography's expanded field to encompass installation, sculpture, photography, collage, and print. Originally trained as a portrait photographer, she holds an MFA from the University of Leeds and has developed an interdisciplinary approach that translates digital imagery into the traditional analogue technique of mokuhanga, Japanese water-based woodblock printing.
Andrea G. Artz's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.
Andrea G. Artz's prints frequently feature urban scenes, spring, temples & shrines, craftspeople, seascapes, animals.