April Vollmer
New York, NY
April Vollmer is a New York artist and writer with an MFA from Hunter College who specializes in creative mokuhanga, Japanese woodcut.
Message
April Vollmer is a New York artist and educator who makes prints, books, and photographs, and specializes in creative mokuhanga, Japanese woodcut. With an M.F.A. from Hunter College, she first visited Japan with the Nagasawa Art Park Program in 2004. Without need for a press, the refined tools and materials of this water based technique allow printing in a small space anywhere. Vollmer uses those traditional techniques in new ways, carving freely and printing blocks herself in different orientations and combinations, generating images through the processes of printmaking.
Vollmer promotes cultural exchange through mokuhanga and is on the advisory boards of the triennial International Mokuhanga Conference, Japan; Kentler International Drawing Space, New York; and the Mokuhanga Project Space, Washington. In addition to exhibiting prints, Vollmer has published in journals including Science, Printmaking Today, and Contemporary Impressions. Her book, Japanese Woodblock Print Workshop, was released by Watson-Guptill in 2015.
Statement
My work is an autobiographical story woven from the patterns and contradictions I see in art history and architecture, nature and science. I make drawings, artist books, photographs and digital prints, with a special focus on woodcut. The methodical steps of printmaking, its technical and scientific character, its repetitions, offer me a way to generate layered, thoughtful images. I often reprint blocks in different orientations to create larger, more complex compositions. With its refined cutting and printing tools and resilient handmade paper, mokuhanga has given me a way to make images that are tactile and immediate. The attention to physical touch gives substance to otherwise fleeting visions. An awareness of the reality of extinction and climate change underlies all these images, making images is a way to share information and remain positive in the face of inevitable loss.