Pete Shuttleworth

Pete Shuttleworth is one of Andrea G. Artz's mokuhanga portraits, made by translating a photographic source into successive water-based woodblock impressions. The single sitter occupies the print without surrounding scenery; the unprinted washi functions as ground. Carved cherry blocks — one for each tonal pass — are inked with a mixture of nori paste and water-soluble pigment, then printed by hand using a baren whose applied pressure determines the depth of pigment penetration into the paper. Kentō registration ensures the colour separations align across multiple impressions, while bokashi is used where the photographic image requires graduated rather than flat tone, particularly across the face. Compared to its original photograph, the printed portrait is softer at the edges and grainier at the surface, registering the artist's hand and the absorbency of kōzo paper. The portrait participates in Artz's broader engagement with the human figure across media, from her early portrait photography through her recent folded-paper figure sculptures, with mokuhanga functioning as the flat printmaking pole of that ongoing inquiry.