Biography
Eric Conrad is an American mokuhanga artist who works with the traditional Japanese technique of water-based woodblock printing. Based in the United States, he has contributed to international exhibitions that showcase the growing global community of mokuhanga practitioners.
Conrad exhibited in the Americas regional exhibition at the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference in Echizen, Japan. The IMC is the primary international gathering for water-based woodblock printmakers, organized approximately every three years by the International Mokuhanga Association in different Japanese cities. The 2024 conference in Echizen was the fifth in the series, drawing hundreds of artists from dozens of countries for exhibitions, workshops, demonstrations, and presentations.
Echizen, in Fukui Prefecture, was a particularly meaningful choice of venue for the 2024 conference. The region has been a center of washi papermaking for over 1,500 years and continues to produce some of Japan's finest handmade papers. For mokuhanga practitioners, whose art depends fundamentally on the quality of the paper they print on, the conference's location in a living papermaking community provided a direct connection to the source of one of their essential materials.
The Americas exhibition at the 2024 IMC presented work from across North and South America, reflecting the substantial growth of mokuhanga practice in the Western Hemisphere since the first IMC in 2011. American practitioners have been drawn to the technique for a range of reasons: the environmental sustainability of water-based printing compared to solvent-heavy Western methods, the unique aesthetic qualities of translucent water-based pigments on handmade washi paper, and the meditative discipline of a process that requires constant attention to material conditions.
Conrad's practice connects him to a community of American mokuhanga artists that has developed its own infrastructure of workshops, study groups, material suppliers, and exhibition opportunities. This community maintains strong ties to Japan through residency programs, teaching exchanges, and the triennial IMC conferences, while also developing distinctly American approaches to the medium that reflect the diverse artistic backgrounds and cultural contexts of its members.
The American mokuhanga movement has grown to the point where the Americas exhibition at the 2024 IMC was one of the largest regional shows, reflecting the critical mass of practitioners that has accumulated since the first conference in 2011. Artists like Conrad contribute to this growth through their sustained practice and their willingness to present work at the international level, helping to demonstrate that water-based woodblock printing has become a fully established medium within the American printmaking landscape rather than a niche specialty or passing interest.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇺🇸United States
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Subjects
- Birds & FlowersNature
- Works Indexed
- 2
Frequently Asked Questions
Eric Conrad is an American mokuhanga artist who works with the traditional Japanese technique of water-based woodblock printing. Based in the United States, he has contributed to international exhibitions that showcase the growing global community of mokuhanga practitioners.
Eric Conrad'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.
Eric Conrad's prints frequently feature birds & flowers, nature.
Eric Conrad is a contemporary printmaker working in the mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock) tradition. Their work contributes to the living tradition of Japanese woodblock printing. Prices for contemporary mokuhanga prints range from $100 for smaller works to $1,500 for major compositions. Most prints sell in the $180–$600 range. The global mokuhanga community has been growing, with increasing exhibition opportunities and collector interest. Contemporary mokuhanga represents an affordable entry point for collectors.
