Biography
Mateja Šmic is a Dublin-based contemporary printmaker working at the intersection of mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing), gelatine printing, and other often non-traditional materials. She graduated in 2019 from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin, with a BA in Fine Print and Critical Cultures, and is a member of Graphic Studio Dublin.
Her practice combines philosophical and psychological questions of experience with material experimentation, addressing the phenomenon of othering, the tensions between the real subject and its mediated representations, and what she describes as a reflexive and multi-layered approach to image-making. The choice of materials — gelatine, sumi ink, water-based inks for mokuhanga, and a range of non-traditional substrates — proceeds by association with subject matter rather than from a fixed technical repertoire, producing intensive cycles and processes of intuitive, experimental engagement.
Šmic was selected for the 2019 MI-LAB Artist-in-Residence Program at Lake Kawaguchi, Japan, where she joined the international cohort that produced the 'Borderless' collaborative artist's book — an edition of eight sumi-ink mokuhanga prints presented in scroll form, made with co-residents from the USA, Ireland, Korea, and the UK and addressing the political theme of separation in a year of growing political divides. Her contribution to the Kanreki exhibition — Graphic Studio Dublin's 60th-anniversary mokuhanga show with the brief that all participating artists incorporate red — was 'Tabula Rasa,' shown at The Model, Sligo (2020), Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin (April 2021), and the 9th International Mokuhanga Conference satellite event at Nara Prefectural Cultural Hall (November-December 2021).
The Kanreki cohort placed Šmic among recent NCAD graduates and senior Graphic Studio Dublin members alongside invited Japan-based artists Yoko Akino, Katsutoshi Yuasa, and Edinburgh-based Paul Furneaux. Within the cohort she represents the youngest career stage — the post-2015 NCAD-trained printmakers (alongside Helen O'Sullivan and Vaida Varnagiene) who have built mokuhanga practice from the ground up while still situating it within broader print-art research.
Her artist Instagram (@mateja_smic) and a personal Shopify-based site at matejasmic.com host her ongoing print output. Public-facing biographical detail beyond the NCAD graduation, MI-LAB residency, and Kanreki/IMC selection is limited; the slug 'mateja-smic' identifies the verified Dublin-based mokuhanga practitioner with the surname romanised both with and without the diacritic Š.
For Hanga's purposes, Mateja Šmic qualifies as a working contemporary mokuhanga printmaker through the verified MI-LAB 2019 residency, the verified 'Borderless' project participation, the verified Kanreki 2020-21 selection, and active membership of Graphic Studio Dublin since 2019.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇮🇪Ireland
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Mateja Šmic is a Dublin-based contemporary printmaker working at the intersection of mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing), gelatine printing, and other often non-traditional materials. She graduated in 2019 from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin, with a BA in Fine Print and Critical Cultures, and is a member of Graphic Studio Dublin.
Mateja Šmic'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.