Hilary Rosen

A portrait print by Andrea G. Artz, part of her continuing investigation of the human figure across photography, sculpture, installation, and mokuhanga. The Japanese water-based woodblock technique she works in carries its own historical association with the human likeness — the [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) and [yakusha-e](/glossary/yakusha-e) of the Edo period being the recognized antecedents — but Artz's practice is not stylistically indebted to those traditions. Her sitters are contemporary, named individuals, photographed first and then translated into print through the carving and overlaying of separate blocks for each tonal area. Pigment is applied with brushes directly to the block, mixed with rice paste, and transferred to dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) by hand pressure with a [baren](/glossary/baren). The resulting portrait carries the matte, slightly absorbed quality particular to the medium, distinct from both the original photograph and from oil-based relief printing. Within Artz's wider London-based practice — which extends to nearly weightless folded paper portraits and site-specific installation — the print operates as a quieter, more contained register of her ongoing concern with figural presence.