Rebecca Holmes

A mokuhanga portrait by Andrea G. Artz, hand-printed onto dampened [washi](/glossary/washi). The choice of paper is integral to the technique: long-fibred, absorbent washi receives the water-based pigment as a stain rather than a deposit, allowing color to penetrate the sheet and produce the soft, matte surface characteristic of Japanese woodblock printing. Artz carves separate blocks for the tonal and color components of the portrait and pulls each impression by hand with a [baren](/glossary/baren), the results aligned through kentō registration. The translation of a photographic source into this material vocabulary is central to her practice: trained originally as a portrait photographer and holding an MFA from Leeds, she has spent recent years developing methods for converting digital images into hand-worked objects, including folded three-dimensional paper portraits exhibited as installation. The print sits within that broader investigation. The sitter's likeness is preserved, but reconstituted through the slow accumulation of pigment in fibre, so the portrait reads as much as a record of the printing as of the subject.