Biography
Ross McDonnell is a printmaker working in mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing) at Graphic Studio Dublin, in Ireland. His mokuhanga 'Little Michael' (2020, 26 × 34 cm) was selected for Kanreki, the exhibition mounted by Graphic Studio Dublin to mark its 60th anniversary, a cohort organised around a brief that all participating artists incorporate the colour red. The name Kanreki - kan meaning return or cycle and reki the calendar - refers to the completion of a sixty-year cycle in Japanese tradition, a celebration of renewal. The exhibition was shown at The Model, Sligo (2020); at the Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin (29 May to 19 June 2021); and as a satellite exhibition of the 4th International Mokuhanga Conference at the Nara Prefectural Cultural Hall (30 November to 4 December 2021).
The Kanreki cohort comprised twenty-four Graphic Studio Dublin members and invited guest artists. Alongside McDonnell it included Robert Russell, Geraldine O'Reilly, Jennifer Lane, Niamh Flanagan, Mateja Šmic, Vaida Varnagienė, Elke Thönnes, Helen O'Sullivan, Susan Mannion, Mary Grey, Louise Leonard, Debra Bowden and Kari Cahill, together with invited artists working in the Japanese mokuhanga tradition such as Yoko Akino, Katsutoshi Yuasa and Paul Furneaux. Every print in the show, including 'Little Michael,' was made to the same standard format used across the cohort.
Public-facing biographical detail on the printmaker - birth year, training history, and exhibition output beyond the Kanreki cohort - is limited. The name is also borne by a well-known Irish photographer and filmmaker from Dublin who works in unrelated documentary contexts; the available records do not connect that body of work to the Graphic Studio Dublin printmaker, and further biographical research would benefit from published Graphic Studio Dublin catalogues or direct enquiry to the studio. For the present, Ross McDonnell is documented as a Kanreki-cohort mokuhanga printmaker with one recorded print, 'Little Michael.'
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇮🇪Ireland
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Ross McDonnell is a printmaker working in mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing) at Graphic Studio Dublin, in Ireland. His mokuhanga 'Little Michael' (2020, 26 × 34 cm) was selected for Kanreki, the exhibition mounted by Graphic Studio Dublin to mark its 60th anniversary, a cohort organised around a brief that all participating artists incorporate the colour red. The name Kanreki - kan meaning return or cycle and reki the calendar - refers to the completion of a sixty-year cycle in Japanese tradition, a celebration of renewal. The exhibition was shown at The Model, Sligo (2020); at the Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin (29 May to 19 June 2021); and as a satellite exhibition of the 4th International Mokuhanga Conference at the Nara Prefectural Cultural Hall (30 November to 4 December 2021).
Ross McDonnell'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.