Biography
Elke Thönnes is a German-born Irish printmaker who works in mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing) alongside photo-etching, carborundum, and photointaglio, based at Graphic Studio Dublin. A native of Cologne, born in 1960, she trained at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Kassel before relocating to Ireland and graduating from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, in 1991.
Thönnes has made Ireland her permanent residence and creative base, with Graphic Studio Dublin the principal site of her print output. Her work is held by Ireland's Office of Public Works, Queens University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, the National Library of Ireland, the British Library, and Dublin City University, and she was commissioned to produce a series of photo-etchings for the Davenport Hotel, Dublin.
Her practice draws on extended observation of the Irish landscape — particularly its Atlantic coast — translated into prints handled with the dexterity and sensitivity characteristic of her media. Water is a recurrent subject, and her coastal studies extend the mokuhanga vocabulary of fluid, gradient-based bokashi colour passages into the specific colour register of the Irish shoreline.
Her mokuhanga print 'Bitter Roots' was selected for Kanreki, one of the exhibitions mounted to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Graphic Studio Dublin and shown at Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin, in 2021. The Kanreki brief asked every participating artist to incorporate the colour red, placing Thönnes alongside fellow Graphic Studio printmakers including Robert Russell, Geraldine O'Reilly, Kate MacDonagh, Mateja Šmic, Vaida Varnagienė, Yoko Akino, and Katsutoshi Yuasa. Her work exemplifies the Graphic Studio Dublin model of dual-language printmaking — Western intaglio running alongside Japanese mokuhanga — that has become a defining feature of contemporary Irish print.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1960
- Nationality
- 🇩🇪Germany
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
Frequently Asked Questions
Elke Thönnes is a German-born Irish printmaker who works in mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing) alongside photo-etching, carborundum, and photointaglio, based at Graphic Studio Dublin. A native of Cologne, born in 1960, she trained at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Kassel before relocating to Ireland and graduating from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, in 1991.
Elke Thönnes was active born in 1960. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Elke Thönnes'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.