anna kalvan

A mokuhanga portrait of Anna Kalvan, produced from a digital photographic source through the multi-block water-based woodblock process. The lowercase rendering of the title within Artz's catalogue is consistent with the artist's presentation of these portraits as a continuous series rather than as individually heroic objects. The image is separated into tonal layers, each carved into a wood block — typically shina plywood, which holds finer detail than the cherry favoured for older [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) — and printed in turn onto [washi](/glossary/washi) using a [baren](/glossary/baren). The kentō registration system, developed in eighteenth-century Edo for full-colour nishiki-e production, allows multiple impressions to align precisely; Artz uses it to reconstruct the smooth tonal transitions of a photograph through layered, hand-printed colour. Anna Kalvan sits within a portrait group that runs alongside Artz's sculptural practice of folded paper figures. Both bodies of work treat the photographic portrait as a starting point rather than an endpoint — a likeness that can be carved, layered, folded or otherwise made to occupy physical space.