Biography
Terry McKenna is an Australian mokuhanga artist, author, and educator who operates the Karuizawa Mokuhanga School in Nagano Prefecture, Japan, one of the few dedicated facilities in the world offering immersive residency-based training in traditional Japanese woodblock printing. Originally trained in oil painting, McKenna holds a Masters Degree in Fine Arts (2002) from a tertiary institution in New Zealand and has taught art media across New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Singapore.
McKenna's transition from Western painting to mokuhanga came through a period of intensive study in Kyoto under Richard Steiner, an American mokuhanga artist who had himself trained under traditional Japanese masters. After two years of study, Steiner bestowed upon McKenna the artistic name 'Toraku,' signifying his recognition as an independent master of the craft. This period of apprenticeship transformed McKenna's artistic identity, redirecting his practice from oil painting toward the water-based woodblock technique that would become his life's work.
McKenna's mokuhanga prints reference both Australian and Japanese landscapes, creating limited editions usually of fifty or fewer impressions. His work values the aesthetic qualities of natural materials, particularly the warmth, softness, and lustre of washi paper, and draws compositional inspiration from the traditions of ukiyo-e imagery. Solo exhibitions have included 'A Mokuhanga Journey' at the Echizen Washi Culture Museum in Japan (2024), 'Robots in Search of Meaning' at Warrnambool Art Gallery in Victoria, Australia (2015), 'Far Island' at Etch Gallery in Geelong (2014), and 'Inner Flame, Woodblock Prints' at Studio 4 Gallery in Queensland (2010). He has participated in more than thirty group exhibitions between 2010 and 2024, in Japan and abroad.
McKenna's contributions to mokuhanga education extend well beyond his school. From 2014 to 2018, he ran the Australian Mokuhanga School, where more than a thousand people attended his workshops. He is the author of 'Mokuhanga Fundamentals,' an extensive English-language manual on the techniques of woodblock printing. His work has received recognition including the Yamamoto Kanae Woodblock Print Award (selected, 2024), the Hanga Forum Kiraku Award (2023), and the Udatsu Washi Award (2021). He also took part in the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference, held that year in Echizen.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇦🇺Australia
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Terry McKenna is an Australian mokuhanga artist, author, and educator who operates the Karuizawa Mokuhanga School in Nagano Prefecture, Japan, one of the few dedicated facilities in the world offering immersive residency-based training in traditional Japanese woodblock printing. Originally trained in oil painting, McKenna holds a Masters Degree in Fine Arts (2002) from a tertiary institution in New Zealand and has taught art media across New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Singapore.
Terry McKenna'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.