Discover the joy of the Garden in spring! Many of our flowers have bloomed, creating delightful pops of color throughout our landscape.
Join Portland Japanese Garden for a special gallery tour led by exhibiting artists featured in Enduring Impressions: Contemporary Woodblock Prints.
Hiroko, Setsuko, and Miho Morinoue’s masterful and innovative woodblock prints and ceramics are among the stunning works featured in Enduring Impressions. Along with the Garden’s Art team, the Morinoues will introduce you to the art form, share their individual contemporary practices, and lead a Q&A session.
The practice of creating mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock printing) in Japan has often involved specialist knowledge being passed down across generations of a family. The Morinoue family represents this unique legacy and are contributing to the future of Japanese-style woodblock printing by educating others through their Hawai’i-based nonprofit organization, the Donkey Mill Arts Center.
Seeing art and culture as a necessity for establishing community resilience, Setsuko and Hiroki Morinoue gathered a small group together to found the nonprofit organization, Donkey Mill Arts Center, based in their home of Hōlualoa, Hawai’i. At The Mill classrooms, studios, and gallery spaces are open to anyone, no matter their age, background, or prior experience. The Mill is recognized for its role among the growing locations outside of Japan where you can learn mokuhanga’s tactile, accessible process with natural water-based colors. Today, Morinoue’s daughter, Miho, has joined the leadership of the Mill, contributing to a new legacy of artistic skills and techniques being passed down to future generations.
Hiroki Morinoue is an artist who has shown work, received awards, and taught woodblock printmaking around the country. Hiroki encountered contemporary woodblock prints during a 1970s trip to Japan. Initially self-taught, he later studied under Takashi Okubo, a Japanese artist who conveyed the delicate processes and demands of water-based woodblock printmaking. Throughout the 1990s, Hiroki worked alongside his wife, Setsuko Morinoue, to expand access to art for his community through co-founding the Donkey Mill Art Center. During his tenure as the Mill’s Artistic Director, the print studio became a mokuhanga training space outside of Japan.
Miho Morinoue was originally introduced to mokuhanga by her father, Hiroki Morinoue. Raised by two artists, Miho became a professional dancer and visual artist, with her artwork ranging from costume design to drawing, painting, and printmaking. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she devoted more time to assisting her father to lead a small group of printmakers who banded together online to explore the mokuhanga discipline, eventually evolving into a group that exhibits their prints publicly.
Setsuko Morinoue is a multimedia artist and visionary behind Donkey Mill Art Center, a vibrant community-based creative hub in Hōlualoa, Hawai’i. Originally from Kanagawa, Japan, Setsuko was introduced to mokuhanga in elementary school, where she carved her first postcard-sized woodblock. Her marriage to Hiroki Morinoue brought her to Hawaii and led to her experiments with combining woodblock printing with other art forms. As an artist, Setsuko works seamlessly to blend her ceramics, painting, printmaking, papermaking, and fiber arts practices into her mixed-media artwork, complementing her efforts to provide diverse art experiences to future generations through the Donkey Mill Art Center’s programming.
