MOKUHANGA WOODCUT PRINTS

BY CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
KATIE BALDWIN, ANNIE BISSETT, AMY FLEISCHER, JULIAN
GATTO, RALPH KIGGELL, TAKUJI HAMANAKA, YOONMI
NAM, FLORENCE NEAL, MIA O, MELISSA SCHULENBERG,
APRIL VOLLMER
JUNE 1 - JULY 1, 2018

Opening Reception Friday, June 1, 6-8 PM

Curated by Ursula Schneider and Lucille Tortora
Contemporary Mokuhanga

Mokuhanga simply means woodcut print in Japanese. The traditional Japanese form
differs from Western woodcut in its use of water-based colors, the hand-held disk
baren printing tool, and the accurate kento registration system, cut directly in the
block. A fourth distinctive characteristic might be considered the use of washi,
Japanese handmade paper. Learning mokuhanga requires careful study and
sensitivity to materials.
The term ukiyo-e can be translated as ‘pictures of the floating world’ and refers to
prints, paintings, books and other images from the Edo period (1603-1868). A
publisher coordinated the work of the artist, carvers and printers from separate
small shops to make popular ukiyo-e prints. In the early twentieth century the
sosaku hanga (creative print) movement that artists began to cut and print their own
work, participating in modern ideas of self-expression. At the same time shin hanga
(new print) artists continued to work with traditional workshops. A few of these still
exist, reproducing ukiyo-e prints or occasionally working with contemporary artists.
— April Vollmer
Contact: Ursula Schneider, ursulapaints@gmail.com, 917-701-5491

Ralph Kiggell

“I was drawn to woodblock printing for several reasons.
One reason is that I was interested in the Japanese
aesthetic, which is superbly represented in Japanese
woodblock prints of the last 400 years. Another is that, as
any artist who has printed knows, there is something
compelling about carving a design on one material and
transferring it to another. Another very important reason is
that woodblock printing uses natural materials and is
sensitive to the environment.”

Ralph Kiggell first studied woodblock printing in Japan
with Hiroshi Yoshida and later with a ground breaking and
innovative woodblock artist Akira Kurosaki. He attended a
masters course in Tokyo with Fukita Fumiaki and Keisei
Kobayashi.

He lives in Thailand and has exhibited extensively
internationally in galleries and museums.
www.ralphkiggell.com

Annie Bisset

Annie Bisset is a mostly self-taught artist who is
primarily working with Mokuhanga since 2005, when
she she studied briefly with New Hapshire woodblock
artist Matt Brown following a 20-year career as a
freelance digital illustrator. Her woodblock prints have
been exhibited in a number of venues including
Boston Printmakers Biennial, Los Angeles Printmaking
Society, the Rober Blackburn Printmaking Workshop,
the Print Center in Philadelphia, and ICPNY. She is on
the teaching staff at Sea Mays Printmaking in
Florence, MA.
www.anniebissett.com

April Vollmer

“The evolution of mokuhanga in Japan is tied to the land
and the seasons, to the local plants and animals. For
contemporary artists in other locations, it still provides a
tactile engagement with materials. Working in mokuhanga
promotes sensitivity to the character of steel and wood,
fiber and moisture, that is profoundly satisfying. In the age
of virtual reality, this sensory engagement is an important
element in the enthusiastic reception of mokuhanga
outside Japan.” This quote is from April Vollmer’s recently
published book: Japanese Woodblock Print Workshop.

April Vollmer is a New York artist with an MFA from Hunter
College. She first visited Japan in 2004 at the Nagasawa
Art Program. She has taught mokuhanga at the Japan
Society and the Lower East Side Printshop in New York as
well as in Spain. She was recently in an artist’s residency
program at the University of Maine, Orono. There she
completed the print Spider Biter, using her own
photographs of plants and insects and utilizing digital
techniques.
www.aprilvollmer.com

Julian Gatto
Julian Gatto is an Argentinian Artist who studied
mokuhanga with Yasu Shibata at Cooper Union in
New York and has an MFA from The School of Art
Institute of Chicago. He works in drawing,
installations and printmaking. He has had solo
exhibitions in Buenos Aires, Tokyo, New York,
Frankfurt Germany, France and Los Angeles.

Yoonmi Nam
My work considers the space where transience and
permanence coexist. In my on-going drawings and
prints, I have used images of man-made
environments and objects, and cut flower
arrangements as metaphors to evoke a sense of time
that is both fleeting and eternal.

I am interested in beauty, irony, impermanence, and
the common and extraordinary way we structure our
surroundings.

Yoonmi Nam was born and raised in Seoul, South
Korea. She has a printmaking degree from Hong-Ik
University, Seoul, and an MFA degree in Painting/
Printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design. She
moved to the USA in 2000. Yoonmi has has received
grants and awards to support her creative research
and travel. Some notable ones include a Solo
Exhibition Award from The Print Center in Philadelphia
and MI-LAB Artist Residency Award in Japan. Her
work has been shown nationally and internationally.
www.yoonminam.com

Mia O

Nature invites me to respond. When I see ripples of
water or reflections of a mountain in a river, I see
patterns. All of the materials I use are friendly to nature
and contain these patterns. I begin freely carving into
wood with no preliminary drawings. When I print, I use
water based pigments on handmade Kozo fiber paper.
The watery ink flows naturally into the paper, tracing the
forces inherent in its form. My color palette expresses
shifts in the light of the four seasons.

Mia O is a South Korean artist, currently living in Japan.
She received a BFA in Fine Arts from Hong-ik University
Seoul, South Korea and an MFA from Pratt Institute,
New York. She was a 2003 participant in the Nagasawa
Art Park Residency. She has exhibited nationally and
internationally.

www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/57587-mia-o

Melissa Schulenberg

Melissa Schulenberg lives in Canton, New York. She
earned her BA in Studio Arts from Bowdoin College,
Maine, her MA in printmaking from Purdue University,
Indiana, and her MFA in Printmaking from University of
Colorado, Boulder.

Her work takes inspiration from observed organic forms,
the natural landscape, and her immediate surroundings.
Melissa thinks of her work as a process of building her
own “alphabet,” forming visual vocabularies into new and
unusual compositions.

Schulenberg’s work has been exhibited nationally and
internationally, most notably in Australia, Ireland, Japan
and New Zealand.
www.stlawu.edu/people/melissa-schulenberg

Florence Neal

Florence Neal is an artist and the Director and Co-
Founder of Kentler International Drawing Space founded
in1990 and since 1992 the Chief Curator of Exhibitions.

Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2019 Fire and Water, Prints,
Museum Auburn, Alabama; 2015 Water Riddles, Prints
and fishing tackle, Installation, The Painters
Gallery,Fleischman, NY; 2014 Re-Surfacing- Prints and
Drawings, Salena Gallery, Long Island University,
Brooklyn, NY; 1981 Paintings Florence Neal, White
Columns, NYC.

Selected Group Exhibitions: 2018 Santa Rosa Festival,
Santa Rosa de Cuevo, Bolivia; Natural Causes, 107
Bowers Gallery, & Art Space, Jersey City, NJ; Kisaragy-
Mokuhanga Prints-MI-LAB Residency, Tokyo, Japan;
Beauty of Mokuhanga: Discipline & Sensibility; Lauren
Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, Mississippi.
www.florenceneal.com

Amy Fleischer

Amy Fleischer studied painting and printmaking at Sarah
Lawrence College, graduated in 2008 and has now a
master’s degree in occupational therapy from Tufts
University. She was awarded an LCC Fellowship Grant in
2014 from Somerville Art Council. She studied
mokuhanga with Ursula Schneider, Matt Brown and
Francesca Lohman. She was selected to attend MI-LAB
residency program in Japan.

“As a watercolor painter and printmaker, I am drawn to
mokuhanga for its fusion of these particles; using water,
pigment, paste, and paper. While working with landscape
imagery, I wish to describe boundaries that are strong,
yet permeable. In mokuhanga, I grow attuned to how
layers combine to form an image. When working towards
resolution of many layers, I aim for a certain outcome but
remain open to what comes. To me, this is the thrill of
printmaking.”

Takuji Hamanaka
Takuji Hamanaka is an artist and printmaker living in Brooklyn,
New York. He was apprentice in traditional woodcut
printmaking in Tokyo, Japan. Hamanaka has been
investigating characteristic effects and materials found in
printmaking and uses them in an unfamiliar context or an
unusual manner. One of his projects is to focus on a typical
printing application called “bokashi” that is a gradation of
lightness of single or multiple colors created by hand applying
a gradation of ink to moistened woodblock. Using these prints
in different colors as a starting point, he constructs an image
by cutting them in various shapes like a mosaic using sheets
stained glass.
His work has been exhibited at the International Print Center,
New York; Whitman College, Washington; National Academy
of Fine Arts, India; and the Royal Scottish Academy in
Edinburg, Scotland, among others.
He received two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships
(2011, 2017), a KALA Art Institute Fellowship and has been a
resident at the MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire; Open
Studio Residency, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Maine;
and Open Studios, Museum of Arts and Design, New York. He
is represented by Owen James Gallery, NY.
www.takujihamanaka.com
 

Katie Baldwin is a printmaker and book artist.

“I am interested in the relationship between drawing and print.
Of course, when I am drawing, I am working much more
spontaneously. I generate images in response to the things I
see. I work quickly, generating lots of work, most of which
isn’t particularly resolved. But out of the work, there are small
moments or lovely images or surprising seeds of ideas that
lead into ideas for prints.”

Katie Baldwin teaches at the University of Alabama in
Huntsville. She earned her BA from Evergreen State College,
Olympia, WA, and her MFA from University of Arts in
Philadelphia. She served as a Victor Hammer Fellow at Wells
College 2011-2013. Baldwin produced the book Treasure at
the Women’s Studio Workshop. She has taught pochoir,
woodcut and book arts at the Center for Book Arts, NYC.
Katie Baldwin’s books are included in many collections. In
2015 she participated in Wood+ Paper+ Box, a project
inspired by Mokuhanga, by Katie Baldwin, Mariko Jesse and
Yoonmi Nam, a show by the three artists who met as artist
residents at the Nagasawa Art Par, on Awaji Island, Japan.

Selected exhibitions include a solo show at the Delaware
Center for Contemporary Arts; The Center for Book Arts, New
York; DIC Square in Nihonbashi, Chuo, Tokyo; Space 1026 in
Philadelphia; and Miejeska Galeria in Lodz, Poland.
www.katieameliabaldwin.com