Biography
Monique Wales is an American printmaker born in 1965 and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area who lives and works in Oakhurst, California, just thirty minutes from Yosemite National Park's southern gate. She is largely self-taught, having worked as a digital artist in marketing for nearly twenty years before beginning to work as a full-time printmaker in 2012, founding Red Tail Studios in her husband-and-wife-built green home and studio on a mountainside near Yosemite.
While mostly known for her reductive linocut relief printmaking, Wales also works in copper plate etching and mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock printing). In 2024, she participated in the MI-LAB (Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory) residency program as part of the Advanced Program E in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, deepening her practice in traditional Japanese water-based woodblock printing.
Her nature-inspired artwork draws heavily from the magnificent mountain landscapes in and around her home near Yosemite. Her prints have garnered numerous honors and awards, including the Ironbridge Fine Arts Printmaker Prize at the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers at NOPE2019. She has exhibited at Fresno Yosemite International Airport and is represented by Mesh Art Gallery.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇺🇸United States
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
Frequently Asked Questions
Monique Wales is an American printmaker born in 1965 and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area who lives and works in Oakhurst, California, just thirty minutes from Yosemite National Park's southern gate. She is largely self-taught, having worked as a digital artist in marketing for nearly twenty years before beginning to work as a full-time printmaker in 2012, founding Red Tail Studios in her husband-and-wife-built green home and studio on a mountainside near Yosemite.
Monique Wales'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.
Monique Wales's prints frequently feature landscapes, autumn foliage, rain, mountains, spring, flora & fauna.
Monique Wales is a contemporary printmaker working in the mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock) tradition. Recognition through awards and exhibitions supports growing collector interest. Prices for contemporary mokuhanga prints range from $150 for smaller works to $2,000 for major compositions. Most prints sell in the $240–$800 range. The global mokuhanga community has been growing, with increasing exhibition opportunities and collector interest. Contemporary mokuhanga represents an affordable entry point for collectors.
