Sho Naganuma

Sho Naganuma (born 1998, Nagano Prefecture, Japan) is a young Japanese contemporary intaglio printmaker, currently based in Tokyo. At 27 he is one of the youngest CWAJ-circulating Japanese printmakers in the 2025 catalogue, working in a hybrid intaglio technique that combines etching, aquatint, and drypoint within a single composition. The CWAJ catalogue documents three of his prints in the 2025 show — an unusually high number for a single artist within a single catalogue, suggesting a substantial and immediate impact within the principal Japanese print showcase.

His 2025 intaglio output as documented through CWAJ includes 'en' (51 × 66 cm), 'wa' (51 × 66 cm), and a third print with '[New Star]' as the working title (43 × 35 cm). All three are produced in the same etching/aquatint/drypoint hybrid technique, with the two larger horizontal compositions at 51 × 66 cm and the smaller vertical at 43 × 35 cm. The Japanese-language single-syllable titles 'en' (縁, 'edge' or 'connection,' or possibly 円, 'circle') and 'wa' (和, 'harmony,' or 輪, 'ring') signal a meditative-and-philosophical register that pairs with the technical complexity of the multi-process intaglio plates.

Naganuma's choice of multi-process intaglio (etching + aquatint + drypoint) places him within a rich technical tradition where single plates are worked through multiple resist and incising techniques to build up complex tonal-and-linear surfaces. Etching produces line through acid biting; aquatint produces tonal modulation through resin-grain-based etching; drypoint produces the soft burred line through direct incising without acid. The combination of all three on a single plate gives the printmaker access to nearly the full range of intaglio mark-making possibilities and produces prints with both crisp lines and soft tonal areas.

The specific training pathway for Naganuma is not documented in the CWAJ catalogue entry, but his Tokyo base and his 2025 catalogue selection together suggest he is currently working through one of the Tokyo art universities or contemporary print studios that has been a transmission channel for younger Japanese intaglio printmakers. The level of technical sophistication evident in the multi-process intaglio output suggests substantial formal training.

The CWAJ Print Show 2025 catalogue selection of three of his works (Print Nos. 304, 305, 306) is significant: most artists in the catalogue are represented by a single print. The triple selection suggests the show's selection committee identified Naganuma as a particularly impactful young printmaker whose work merited fuller representation. His emergence at 27 places him in the same young-printmaker cohort as Kanta Kobayashi (b. 2001) and Kaoru Kusanagi (b. 1995).

Within the contemporary Japanese print scene Naganuma represents the youngest cohort of Tokyo-based intaglio printmakers, working in a technically sophisticated multi-process register and bringing meditative-philosophical Japanese-titled subjects to a contemporary print sensibility. Beyond the CWAJ catalogue entries, biographical detail and exhibition history are not currently surfaced through public-facing online channels.