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](/glossary/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](/glossary/baren), with kentō notches holding the successive impressions in register. [Bokashi](/glossary/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.