Jody Tableporter

Jody Tableporter is a mokuhanga portrait by Andrea G. Artz, made from a photographic source via Japanese water-based woodblock technique. The print is hand-pulled on [washi](/glossary/washi) using a [baren](/glossary/baren), with each colour applied from a separately carved block keyed by kentō registration marks. Artz's training in portrait photography is visible in the framing and direct address typical of her sitters, while the materiality of the printed sheet — the fibre of the paper, the soft edges of [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradients, the slight grain of the wood — places the image firmly in the woodblock tradition. The portrait connects to Artz's wider practice of three-dimensional folded photographic constructions: both the flat print and the sculptural object treat the photograph as a starting point that can be physically reworked. The result is portraiture made through process as much as through likeness.