Momori Kaga

Momori Kaga (born 1963, Tokyo) is a Japanese intaglio printmaker working in etching, with a sustained practice based in Yamagata Prefecture. Her selection in the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025 with '-Be Yourself-,' a 51 × 65 cm etching from 2024, places her within the established cohort of mid-career to senior Japanese intaglio printmakers, and her etching sold during the 2025 Print Show — a market reception confirmation rare among the catalog's offerings.

Kaga received her training at Tama Art University (Tamabi), one of the principal Japanese art universities for printmaking pedagogy. The Tama Art University printmaking program has produced a substantial line of contemporary Japanese print artists from the 1970s onward, and the program's pedagogical emphasis on technical rigor combined with conceptual experimentation has shaped successive cohorts of Tokyo-area print practitioners.

Kaga subsequently trained at the Kasumi-cho Mikkazuki Copper Plate Printing Workshop (霞町三日月銅版画工房) in Yamagata Prefecture, a specialized regional intaglio workshop that operates as both a training environment and a shared editioning facility for working printmakers. Workshop training in copper-plate intaglio is a substantial post-degree pathway in Japanese print, where the technical demands of etching, drypoint, mezzotint, and aquatint require sustained practice with mature equipment beyond what most degree programs provide.

The Tokyo-born, Tama-trained, Yamagata-resident pattern of Kaga's career is notable — Yamagata Prefecture is a substantial relocation from the Tokyo art-world center, and her continued practice through the Yamagata workshop suggests a sustained engagement with the regional intaglio tradition that has produced several distinguished Japanese printmakers across decades.

The title '-Be Yourself-' (with the bracketing dashes treated as part of the title) is a brief affirmative statement rendered in English. The choice of an English-language title — rather than Japanese — for a Japanese artist's etching is a stylistic register that has become increasingly common in twenty-first-century Japanese contemporary print, signaling both an intended international audience and a generational departure from the predominantly Japanese-titled work of senior printmakers.

The 51 × 65 cm sheet size is a moderate-large horizontal etching plate. The CWAJ catalog assigned '-Be Yourself-' a sale-confirmed slot in the 68th edition, with the marker indicating the work had sold during the Print Show — a positive market reception signal among the broader cohort of selected works.

Further biographical detail beyond the CWAJ Print Show entry — Kaga's broader exhibition history, gallery representation, museum holdings, the broader 'Be Yourself' working series (if any), and earlier work — is not currently surfaced through the public-facing English-language channels. Tama Art University alumni records, Yamagata-area exhibition records, and the Kasumi-cho Mikkazuki Copper Plate Printing Workshop's documented activities would be the principal next-step research targets for extending this bio.