Cai Tuomivaara

In the portrait of Cai Tuomivaara, Andrea G. Artz applies the techniques of mokuhanga to a contemporary sitter, continuing a body of work in which photographic portraits are reinterpreted through Japanese water-based woodblock printing. The medium relies on hand-carved cherry-wood blocks, water-soluble pigments, and absorbent [washi](/glossary/washi) paper, printed by hand using a [baren](/glossary/baren) rather than a press. Washi's long fibers and capacity to receive multiple impressions without distortion are central to mokuhanga's characteristic surface, allowing pigment to settle into rather than sit on top of the sheet. For Artz—German-born, London-based, and trained originally as a portrait photographer—the move from photographic paper to washi is a material transposition as much as a stylistic one, shifting the sitter's image into a medium with different optical and tactile properties. Her wider practice extends portraiture into installation, sculpture, and folded paper construction, and the woodblock portraits function as a parallel, two-dimensional engagement with the same questions of likeness, surface, and the figure's presence.