Maureen Nathan

"Maureen Nathan" sits within Andrea G. Artz's series of mokuhanga portraits, each named for the individual depicted and produced by translating a photographic source into the constraints of Japanese water-based woodblock. The technique requires the photograph to be analysed into a finite number of tonal layers, with one block carved for each layer; the impressions are then built up in sequence on [washi](/glossary/washi), with kentō registration marks ensuring that successive blocks land in the same position. Water-based pigments and the absorbent paper support a tonal range well-suited to portraiture, particularly when [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) — gradient inking applied with a brush directly to the block — is used to transition softly between values. Artz, whose training as a portrait photographer underpins her sustained attention to the human figure, has built an interdisciplinary practice that moves between installation, sculpture, photography, collage, and print. The mokuhanga portraits function as a two-dimensional counterpart to the folded paper figures that populate her recent site-specific installations, where the same subject matter — the individual person — takes physical form rather than remaining a printed image.