Charlotte Staunton

Charlotte Staunton belongs to Andrea G. Artz's portrait sequence in mokuhanga, in which photographic source images of named sitters are reworked through Japanese water-based woodblock printing. The transfer from continuous-tone photograph to carved block compels a reduction of facial information into discrete colour separations, with each pass of the [baren](/glossary/baren) laying water-thinned pigment into [washi](/glossary/washi) to build up flesh tones and hair through layered translucency rather than opaque ink. [Bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) is typically deployed across the cheek, jawline and background to retain the modelling that photography records automatically but woodblock must construct deliberately. The work reflects Artz's broader interdisciplinary practice, in which her training as a portrait photographer is consistently reoriented through analogue and dimensional techniques. Where her installation work folds photographic portraits into filigree paper objects, the mokuhanga prints flatten the same enquiry back into a single sheet, testing how much of a specific person's presence a hand-pulled print can carry when the photographic original is no longer visible.