Nana Shiomi – Durer’s Law of Printmaking – Twin Rhinos

Featured in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2023

The Laws of Printmaking: As a printmaker, I always think about dualities and the nature of printmaking. I often use upside-down images, mirror images, and opposites. The format of playing cards is a perfect vehicle for my message. Newton’s Apple and Durer’s Rhinos came to me from their silhouettes: Hearts and Spades. I pay homage to these historic heroes. Apples are the most familiar fruits. The apple has historically significant meanings and stories. The story of Newton’s Law of Gravitation is one of them. I found the image of cutting an apple in half enigmatic. A beautiful cross-section is only revealed when it is cut in half. Durer’s Rhinoceros is one of the most famous images in woodcut printmaking. Durer made woodcut printmaking a high-quality method of communication in Europe. His Rhinoceros is not an accurate representation. He drew it from his imagination. I admire Durer’s achievement as a woodcut printmaker and invite the Rhinoceros into my printmaking world.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Nana Shiomi makes contemporary woodcut prints. After a period of examining Western art, Shiomi moved on to consider her own Japanese culture within her prints. Shiomi makes reference to masterpieces from the Japanese ukiyo-e tradition in her own work. She often employs a stage within the composition of her images to present ideas. Her printing approach can be described technically as a combination of relief/intaglio and water-based woodcut printmaking. It is rooted in the traditional methods of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock, printmaking by hand with a Baren, to which she has added her own experimental printing techniques.

Shiomi’s work is held in public collections including: The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Royal College of Art Collection; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; Wimbledon School of Art Collection; Brunel University, Middlesex; Oriental Museum, Durham; Aberystwyth University, Wales; The Johnson Museum, Cornell University Collection, USA; Tama Art University, Tokyo.

Born in Osaka, Japan in 1956, Shiomi studied oil painting and printmaking at the Tama Art University (BA, MA), Tokyo, and in 1989 – 1991 MA Printmaking at the Royal College of Art, London. She has been living and working in London since 1989.

Rabley Gallery and Nana Shiomi co-published This Side and the Other Side, Nana Shiomi Woodcuts 1996 – 2016, a monograph on the artist’s prints. It is available from the gallery.