Royal
©Mara Cozzolino
Main Gallery Area Artist
Artist Information
Photo by Stefano Fusaro
Mara Cozzolino
1975 Born in Turin
2014 “Japanned!” group exhibition, Gallery Ten (Edinburgh,UK)
2017 “Beauty of Mokuhanga: discipline and sensibility” University of Manoa (Honolulu, Hawaii)
2018 “Japan” collective exhibition, West Yorkshire Print Workshop (West Yorkshire, UK)
2018 “Fragment encounters” collective project exhibited at Impact 10 (Santander, Spain)
2018 “Woolwich Print Fair” selected for 2018 exhibition (London, UK)
I’ve always been fascinated by prints and printmaking since I was 11: I’ve practiced different techniques and started mokuhanga In 2011, because is an environmental friendly technique, plus you really don’t need much space to work. My latest prints depict trees and starry nights made with 2 woodblock, one carved with small holes printed several times with different gradations of colour that will become stars, while the other intricately carved and flat printed with sumi ink to create branches and trees.All my “tree” prints are born from scraps of old pictures took in winter when trees have no leaves well before using them as subject for my prints.In fact I actually wasn’t really interested in drawing them before using woodblock printing. Once I have chosen the photos I want to use for my inspiration, I start sketching, and at this phase I try to abstract as much as possible, I like to try to keep the particular tree, or set of branches, still quite recognizable but at the same time transform it in something more abstract and geometrical.
[Comment by Selector]
Mara Cozzolino, based in Turin, Italy, is printmaking artist who works internationally. Participating from early in her career at a water-based “Mokuhanga” (Japanese woodblock print) AIR located near Lake Kawaguchi, she has continued her artistic practice with the skills she gained there. Her style has changed drastically through her use of Mokuhanga in artworks. Her current work focuses on the silhouette of a tree growing into the night scape that investigates darkness, as if going against the soft expression characteristic of Mokuhanga with its transparent paint and use of Washi paper. With her motif bought out through expressions of form and color found in Western art through an Eastern method, one finds a theme of universality that integrates and compares the two cultures located at opposite sides of the world.