Yoshikatsu Tamekane

Yoshikatsu Tamekane is a Japanese printmaker whose richly textured woodblock prints explore themes of time, space, memory, and the human spirit's journey. Born in 1959 in Hyogo Prefecture in the Osaka area, Tamekane graduated from the Sokei Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo before spending three formative years in France from 1991 to 1994, refining his printmaking techniques and absorbing European artistic traditions.

Tamekane is distinguished by his innovative use of collagraph techniques within the woodblock medium. Rather than relying solely on carved wood, he builds up textural surfaces by collaging materials such as string, resinous gum, and paper onto his blocks. This raised surface can then be inked and printed as a relief block, or the crevices between the raised areas can be inked and printed as intaglio, or the blocks may be embossed without ink altogether. He further enriches his compositions with applications of gold, silver, and copper metallic leaf, and employs backside printing to create additional depth and luminosity.

The themes of Tamekane's work oscillate between past and future, between earthbound landscapes and cosmic vistas. His compositions often feature distant moons or planets, musical clefs, sweeping calligraphic brush strokes, and shadowy horizons suffused with the shimmer of metallic leaf. Titles such as Far Days, From a Memory, White Dream, A Long Long Trip, and A Remembrance reveal an artist who savors the past while looking to the future with hope and optimism for the human spirit.

Tamekane now makes his home in Kanagawa Prefecture. His work has been exhibited internationally in Paris, Fukui, Tokyo, Krakow, and Bodega Bay, California. He has received numerous honors including best of show at the Fukui exhibition, a Japan Printmakers Association award, and the Tama Museum award. In 1995, he was selected as the cover artist for the prestigious CWAJ (College Women's Association of Japan) Tokyo print show catalogue. His prints are held in the permanent collections of the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art in Israel, the National Museum in Krakow, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, the Museum of Modern Art in Saitama, and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris.