Biography
Arie Furumoto (born 1965, Tokyo) is a Japanese printmaker working principally in etching, with a sustained practice currently based in Hyogo Prefecture. Her selection in the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025 with 'Calla W-2,' a 34 × 62 cm etching from 2024, places her within the established cohort of mid-career Japanese intaglio printmakers circulating through the principal Tokyo-area juried exhibition channels in the mid-2020s.
Furumoto trained at Kyoto City University of Art (KCUA), the principal Kansai-region art university and one of the two top-tier Japanese art universities outside Tokyo. KCUA's printmaking program has been a major generator of contemporary Japanese print since the 1960s, and the intaglio stream in particular has produced a distinguished line of practitioners working with etching, aquatint, and mezzotint techniques.
The Tokyo-born, Kyoto-trained, Hyogo-resident pattern of Furumoto's career trajectory is characteristic of a generation of Japanese women printmakers whose lives traverse the principal urban centers of contemporary Japan. The shift from training at Kyoto City University of Art to a sustained practice based in Hyogo Prefecture suggests integration into the broader Kansai-region intaglio practice community, and her continued exhibition through the Tokyo-based CWAJ Print Show channel demonstrates ongoing engagement with the national print scene.
Furumoto's chosen medium is etching, the foundational copperplate intaglio technique. The title 'Calla W-2' refers to the calla lily — a recurring botanical subject in Japanese contemporary intaglio, and one that lends itself well to the etched-line technique through its sculpted-curve forms. The 'W-2' suffix suggests a working series with multiple variants, consistent with the working-series methodology common in Japanese intaglio practice where artists develop a single botanical or compositional subject across multiple plate-state and color variations.
The 34 × 62 cm sheet size is a moderate-format horizontal etching plate. The CWAJ catalog selected 'Calla W-2' for the 2025 online gallery presentation in the 68th edition.
Further biographical detail beyond the CWAJ Print Show entry — Furumoto's broader exhibition history, gallery representation, museum holdings, and earlier work — is not currently surfaced through the public-facing English-language channels. Kansai-area exhibition records, the Kyoto City University of Art alumni network, and Japanese-language sources covering mid-career intaglio printmakers would be the principal next-step research targets for extending this bio.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1965
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Arie Furumoto (born 1965, Tokyo) is a Japanese printmaker working principally in etching, with a sustained practice currently based in Hyogo Prefecture. Her selection in the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025 with 'Calla W-2,' a 34 × 62 cm etching from 2024, places her within the established cohort of mid-career Japanese intaglio printmakers circulating through the principal Tokyo-area juried exhibition channels in the mid-2020s.
Arie Furumoto was active born in 1965. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Arie Furumoto'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.