Biography
Asuka Tsutsumi is a Japanese artist whose practice centers on mokuhanga, the traditional water-based woodblock printing technique, which she combines with digital inkjet printing and other mixed-media methods to create layered works that explore the vitality of the natural world. Based in Kyoto, Tsutsumi's prints are characterized by sophisticated technical detail, including very fine, thin carvings and signature organic shapes and lines that evoke the living forms of plants and botanical subjects.
Plants are fundamental to Tsutsumi's artistic vision. She draws continuing inspiration from their capacity for surprise and discovery, finding in their forms a source of colors, shapes, light, and vitality that informs her printmaking. Her technique involves a distinctive layered process: she prints Japanese Awagami paper with inkjet printing, prints thin, translucent Japanese Ganpi paper with woodcut rubbing, and then pastes the printed Ganpi onto the Awagami using starch paste. This combination of traditional mokuhanga methods with contemporary digital printing — alongside elements such as chine-collé, pastel, mica, and waxing — creates works of remarkable translucency and visual complexity.
In 2020, Tsutsumi encountered the Toma House in Nara, an art space housed in the only remaining residence of a former Kasuga Taisha Shinto priest family, built in the eighteenth century. This historic space became an exhibition venue for her work, providing a setting where the dialogue between traditional Japanese architecture and her contemporary botanical prints could unfold.
Tsutsumi has been an active participant in the international mokuhanga community. She gave a demonstration at the Fourth International Mokuhanga Conference in Nara in 2021, and her work was included in the juried international exhibition at the Fifth International Mokuhanga Conference in Echizen in 2024. Her engagement with these conferences reflects a commitment to both preserving and innovating within the tradition of Japanese woodblock printing.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 2
Frequently Asked Questions
Asuka Tsutsumi is a Japanese artist whose practice centers on mokuhanga, the traditional water-based woodblock printing technique, which she combines with digital inkjet printing and other mixed-media methods to create layered works that explore the vitality of the natural world. Based in Kyoto, Tsutsumi's prints are characterized by sophisticated technical detail, including very fine, thin carvings and signature organic shapes and lines that evoke the living forms of plants and botanical subjects.
Asuka Tsutsumi'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.
