Raita Miyadera

Raita Miyadera (宮寺雷太, born 1971, Tokyo) is a Japanese printmaker and educator working primarily in mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing) and silkscreen. He completed an MFA in Painting/Printmaking at Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geidai) Graduate School in 1999, and has been a long-standing member of the Japan Print Association and the Print Study Society.

Miyadera's exhibition record begins with his 1998 selection for the 23rd National University Print Exhibition (Acquisition Prize), and continues through the 2001 Fukumitsu Munakata Memorial Print Grand Prize Exhibition (Encouragement Prize), the 2005 4th Hida Takayama Contemporary Woodprint Biennial (Encouragement Prize), the 2011 3rd NBC Mesh Tech Silkscreen International Print Biennial (Grand Prize), and the 2012 3rd Adachi Ukiyo-e Prize (Honorable Mention). The combination of mokuhanga prizes (Hida Takayama, Adachi Ukiyo-e) and silkscreen prizes (NBC Mesh Tech) reflects his sustained dual technical commitment to both traditional Japanese woodblock printing and contemporary silkscreen.

In 2001 he participated in the Nagasawa Art Park residency in Hyogo Prefecture, the formative pre-MI-LAB programme for international mokuhanga artists, where he focused on water-based woodblock printing. In 2002 he undertook the Lake St. Clair Residency in Tasmania, Australia, an exchange that placed him within the Australia-Japan print circulation circuit alongside the Megalo Print Studio (Canberra) and the Australian Print Workshop community.

A recent collaborative project — produced with the printmaker and lacquer artist Hashimoto Haruka — has translated Miyadera's woodblock and ukiyo-e visual vocabulary onto dry-lacquer folding trays and small decorative plates. The collaboration produces functional craft objects with titles such as 'ずれた' (Shifted), 'もんもんもん,' 'らくがき' (Scribbles), 'Shifted,' and 'Atomic.' This dry-lacquer production line is documented through the Tokyo Geidai Art Plaza, the official commercial channel of the university.

Miyadera maintains websites at miyaderaraita.jp and at raitamiyadera.jimdofree.com (with his social-media presence as @Raitterbird on X / Twitter). He is currently recognised as an Associate Member of the Japan Print Association (Nihon Hanga Kyokai) and a member of the Print Study Society — the two principal Japanese contemporary-print professional societies.

Within the contemporary Japanese mokuhanga community he is one of the active mid-career practitioners whose work straddles the international print biennial circuit and the domestic Japanese print society apparatus, with a parallel decorative-craft practice that translates his print vocabulary into functional object form.