Biography
Elettra Gorni (b. 1967, Suzzara, Mantua, Italy) is an Italian artist, researcher, and teacher whose principal medium is mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing). She holds an M.A. (with distinction) in History of Modern Art from Ca' Foscari University, Venice (1996), and a B.A. (with distinction) in Sculpture from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan (2012). She works between painting, sculpture, ceramics, drawing, and mokuhanga, and currently lives in Milan.
After her 1996 art-history degree from Ca' Foscari, Gorni worked as a cartoonist before beginning a new artistic direction in 2005. That shift marked the start of her parallel commitment to studio practice — she went on to graduate in Sculpture from the Brera Academy in 2012 — and during her Brera training she began the mokuhanga research that has since become her principal field of artistic inspiration, study, and teaching. Her practice is shaped explicitly by the visual economies of old Japanese books and prints; she describes herself as inspired by 'simple shapes, black/white, only few colors and the void.' The mokuhanga technique, with its capacity for flat tonal layering and hand-rubbed application of sumi ink and watercolours on Japanese kozo paper, suits her interest in 'simple, meditative, flat images with a strong power of evocation.'
Gorni presented at the 2017 International Mokuhanga Conference (IMC) on the topic 'The Mokuhanga Technique at the Service of Visual Narration: a sample of a set of ten prints,' positioning her practice within the international mokuhanga community of working artists, educators, and theorists. She treats the mokuhanga medium as a vehicle for narrative serial development, and her print suites accumulate as visual sequences rather than as standalone images.
Her Saatchi Art profile (active since 2010) presents 76 artworks across printmaking, painting, sculpture, ceramics, and drawing. Documented mokuhanga prints include 'OJIZOUSAMA' — depicting the Japanese roadside Jizō figure — alongside 'Florilandia,' 'Wooden Head,' 'Tempo (Time),' 'Self-portrait as Japanese Mask,' and the 'EGREGORE' series (for example 'EGREGORE #1: Why Nobody Loves Me?,' an edition of 10). Her prints are hand-rubbed with sumi ink and watercolours on Japanese kozo paper. The Jizō, Japanese-mask, and EGREGORE titles together signal her sustained iconographic engagement with Japanese folk-religious and mask-theatre imagery.
Her mokuhanga editions are characteristically small, reflecting both the labour-intensiveness of the hand-rubbed water-based printing technique and the collectible orientation of her output. The Saatchi Art platform circulates her work to international collectors through its curated collections, and she maintains an active teaching practice in Milan, with mokuhanga as her principal pedagogical medium.
Gorni is one of the Italian artists active in the contemporary international mokuhanga community, her practice shaped by the IMC conference network and by the Italian cartooning and historical-art-research background from which she came. Her dual academic credentials (Brera and Ca' Foscari) and her roughly two-decade commitment to mokuhanga place her at the intersection of Italian art-history scholarship and contemporary international mokuhanga practice.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1967
- Nationality
- 🇮🇹Italy
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Elettra Gorni (b. 1967, Suzzara, Mantua, Italy) is an Italian artist, researcher, and teacher whose principal medium is mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing). She holds an M.A. (with distinction) in History of Modern Art from Ca' Foscari University, Venice (1996), and a B.A. (with distinction) in Sculpture from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan (2012). She works between painting, sculpture, ceramics, drawing, and mokuhanga, and currently lives in Milan.
Elettra Gorni was active born in 1967. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Elettra Gorni'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.