Biography
Chie Mori is a Japanese contemporary printmaker who lives and works in Germany — one of the small but consistent cohort of Japanese-born printmakers who have established their mature studio practices outside Japan. She studied design at the University of the Arts Bremen (Hochschule für Künste Bremen), a training pathway that places her within the contemporary German printmaking tradition rather than the Tokyo or Kyoto art-school lineages that dominate the CWAJ catalogue. Her birth year is not publicly disclosed.
She works across a range of intaglio and surface-print techniques — carborundum, etching and soft-ground etching, collagraphy, drypoint, algraphy, polymer intaglio, and chine collé. Her carborundum print 'The Survival 4.0' (2024, 40 × 40 cm), exhibited at the 68th CWAJ Print Show in Tokyo (2025), is one entry in an ongoing 'Survival' series numbered like software versions (1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 5.0, 8.0). The carborundum technique — silicon carbide grit applied to a plate as the printing matrix — produces a strong tactile surface and rich tonal modeling distinct from copperplate intaglio or relief printing, and has been associated with European contemporary printmaking since the mid-twentieth century. The 'Survival' title and version-number format signal a contemporary, conceptual engagement with themes of persistence and resilience.
Mori's studio training in Bremen situates her within the German contemporary printmaking tradition, which has been historically receptive to carborundum, mezzotint, and other surface-emphasizing intaglio techniques as well as abstract and conceptual subject matter. Her work has been shown internationally — including exhibitions in Hamburg, Portugal, and Turkey — and is held in the collection of the Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig. Within the contemporary Japanese-international print scene she represents the German-trained branch of the Japanese diaspora, a small but distinct cohort whose technical and conceptual practices reflect European contemporary printmaking. Beyond the CWAJ catalogue entry, fuller biographical detail — including her birth year — is not currently surfaced through public-facing online channels.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Subjects
- Abstract
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Chie Mori is a Japanese contemporary printmaker who lives and works in Germany — one of the small but consistent cohort of Japanese-born printmakers who have established their mature studio practices outside Japan. She studied design at the University of the Arts Bremen (Hochschule für Künste Bremen), a training pathway that places her within the contemporary German printmaking tradition rather than the Tokyo or Kyoto art-school lineages that dominate the CWAJ catalogue. Her birth year is not publicly disclosed.
Chie Mori'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.
Chie Mori's prints frequently feature abstract.