Yurie Mamiya

Yurie Mamiya (born 1972, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese contemporary printmaker working primarily in etching combined with pigment-print techniques, currently based in Tokyo. She trained at Joshibi University of Art and Design and completed graduate studies at the same institution; she studied under the printmakers Akira Baba (馬場章) and Kiyomi Kato (加藤清美). She is a member of the Japan Print Association, the Print Studies Association, and the Japan Art Association.

Her recent practice, as documented in the 68th CWAJ Print Show 2025, presents large-format intaglio compositions — exemplified by 'Seimei VIII' (生命 VIII, 'Life VIII,' 2024, 90 × 61 cm). The 'Seimei' (Life) title and the Roman-numeral-VIII suffix indicate an ongoing numbered series, with the eighth entry suggesting a sustained body of work organized around the theme of life or vital force. The medium designation 'etching / pigment print' signals a hybrid technique that combines traditional intaglio plate-printing with pigment-based hand-colouring or layered colour application, producing the rich tonal-and-chromatic surface that distinguishes her work.

Mamiya's training at Joshibi University of Art and Design — the principal women's art university in Japan, founded in 1900 — places her in a Joshibi-trained Tokyo printmaking lineage that includes Suzuki Tomoe and Terumi Oishi (b. 1988), among others. Joshibi has been a continuous transmission channel for women printmakers across the postwar period, and its graduate program has produced a substantial proportion of the contemporary Tokyo-based women printmakers active in CWAJ.

Her dual mentorship under Akira Baba (馬場章) and Kiyomi Kato (加藤清美) — both senior contemporary Japanese printmakers — gives her access to two distinct printmaking traditions within the Joshibi faculty. Kato is a notable Tokyo-area printmaker associated with a long career in intaglio; Baba is a senior printmaker whose technical influence extends across both intaglio and lithograph practice.

The 90 × 61 cm vertical format of 'Seimei VIII' is at the upper end of comfortable intaglio plate work — the sheet is large enough to require careful press registration but remains within the typical scale of single-plate etching practice. The vertical orientation suits the contemplative-and-symbolic register that the 'Life' title suggests; the etching-plus-pigment-print technique allows for the chromatic richness that pure black-line etching cannot achieve.

Within the contemporary Japanese print scene Mamiya represents the mid-career cohort of Joshibi-trained Tokyo-based women intaglio printmakers active across the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s. Her membership in the Japan Print Association, Print Studies Association, and Japan Art Association together demonstrates a sustained engagement with the Japanese institutional system. Beyond the CWAJ catalogue entry and association-membership listings, biographical detail and a fuller exhibition history are not currently surfaced through public-facing online channels.