Paul Lincoln

Paul Lincoln belongs to Andrea G. Artz's mokuhanga portrait series, in which photographs of named sitters are translated into Japanese water-based woodblock prints. The composition centres a single figure against bare washi, a strategy that strips the portrait of contextual setting and concentrates attention on the sitter's head and upper body. Mokuhanga requires a separate block for each colour or tonal area; the blocks are inked with nori and water-soluble pigment, then printed by hand with a baren onto dampened paper, with kentō ensuring that each layer registers correctly against the last. Bokashi gradations, achieved by wiping pigment unevenly across the block before printing, allow Artz to render photographic light without resorting to halftone or screening. The result is a portrait that retains the descriptive specificity of the photographic source while taking on the absorbed, slightly diffuse surface characteristic of mokuhanga on kōzo paper. The work sits within Artz's interdisciplinary practice, which extends from photography into sculpture, collage and folded-paper installations addressing the figure in space.