Gabriela Grant

Part of Andrea G. Artz's portrait cycle in mokuhanga, the Japanese water-based woodblock technique that she has adopted in her London studio after training initially as a photographer. Unlike oil-based relief printing, mokuhanga uses pigment mixed with rice paste and water and pulled by hand with a [baren](/glossary/baren) onto dampened [washi](/glossary/washi), producing flat, absorbent fields of color without ink gloss. Artz applies that vocabulary to a contemporary portrait of a named sitter, reconstructing the photographic image through a sequence of separately carved blocks aligned by the kentō registration marks central to the tradition. The chromatic restraint typical of her print work — close-valued tones, soft transitions, a limited palette — derives directly from the medium's affinities. Within her broader practice, which includes three-dimensional folded paper portraits and site-specific installation, this print belongs to the more contained, two-dimensional strand: a single image worked patiently through the additive logic of overprinted layers rather than constructed as a sculptural object.