Amanda Idowu

A portrait of Amanda Idowu rendered in mokuhanga, Japanese water-based woodblock. The print follows the working method shared across Andrea G. Artz's portrait series: a digital photographic source is separated into discrete colour layers, the principal contours are cut into a key block of cherry or shina, and further blocks are carved for each tonal field before being pulled by hand on dampened washi using a baren and water-based pigments thinned with nori. Bokashi gradations carry transitions of light across the face that would, in the photograph, read as continuous tone. The likeness arrives through the registered accumulation of separate impressions rather than the instant of photographic capture. Within Artz's wider body of work — which moves between photography, collage, folded paper sculpture, and site-specific installation — the mokuhanga portraits constitute a sustained study in moving images between media: from camera image into separated colour blocks into a single registered sheet, and, in adjacent works, on into folded three-dimensional paper construction.