Sidi Larbi Chercaoui

A portrait print that translates Andrea G. Artz's photographic source material of the Belgian-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui into the layered registration of mokuhanga. Cherkaoui is known for hybrid choreography that draws on contemporary, classical Indian, and Sufi traditions, and Artz's portrait approach typically isolates the sitter against a planar field, allowing the cut grain of the woodblock and the absorbency of [washi](/glossary/washi) to reassert the materiality that photography compresses. Carved likely from shina plywood and printed with water-based pigments using a [baren](/glossary/baren), the print depends on careful [kento](/glossary/kento) registration to align successive color blocks across the figure. The translation from digital photograph into wood obliges a reduction of tonal range, so passages that read as continuous skin or fabric in the source image become areas of flat color or [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation. The work belongs to Artz's broader investigation of how the human figure can survive translation between media — from lens-based capture through digital intermediary to the analogue trace left by inked block on dampened paper.