Philomine Wales

Philomine Wales is part of Andrea G. Artz's portrait practice in mokuhanga, in which photographic likenesses of specific sitters are reworked through Japanese water-based woodblock printing. The print isolates a single figure against the unprinted washi, a compositional decision typical of the series and one that gives the paper itself a structural role in the image. Each colour or tonal area is carved as a separate cherry-wood block; pigment bound with nori is brushed onto the block and transferred to dampened paper by burnishing with a baren, with kentō notches holding the successive impressions in register. Bokashi gradations are used to render the soft falloff of light across the sitter's features, replacing the continuous tone of the photographic original with hand-graded pigment. The portrait emerges through accumulation rather than instantaneous capture. Within Artz's interdisciplinary practice — encompassing photography, collage, sculpture and folded-paper installations — these mokuhanga portraits represent her sustained engagement with the human figure as the central subject of her work, regardless of medium.