Artist Statement
My practice moves between doing and undoing.
Within the conditions I set, there are areas of intervention and areas of release. From the space between these actions, something transient emerges—appearing briefly, then quietly fading away.
Here, the concepts of unpredictability and randomness — concepts to which I have long been deeply drawn — quietly breathe. In the process of printmaking, what is inscribed into the plate is not the final result, but one event that happens to appear in the course of generation.
Phenomena are not fixed. Through observation and subtle intervention, they alter their form each time they appear. I do not impose excessive control upon them. I receive them as they are, transferring them onto paper.
Even after the act of printmaking has ended, the materials continue to change slowly over time.
I do not seek to halt this transformation. I continue to work within it.
Series Description
Enoki works with conditions she cannot fully control.
In the Binding and String series, copper plates are bound with string and immersed in acid. The string resists the acid, while exposed areas are gradually altered. It does not draw the image, but sets the conditions from which it arises. What appears is not the execution of a plan, but the accumulation of events that occur between intention and contingency.
Prints are produced as variable editions. The plate deteriorates through repeated immersion in acid, eventually ceasing to function. Each impression is taken within this limit.
In the Solid in Flux series, marks are made through direct physical acts. Lines are inscribed into metal surfaces by forces that are directed, yet never fully controlled. Metal leaf becomes the site of printing. The image is transferred onto the leaf, which remains materially present. Its surface does not settle into a fixed state. Each encounter produces a different image.
Here, variable editions arise differently. The plate itself does not deteriorate. Variation emerges through the application of metal leaf.
In both series, metal leaf is introduced through chine-collé. It is neither transferred nor collaged, but made present within the act of printing itself — arising in the same moment as the transferred image, inseparable from it, yet operating by an entirely different logic.
Each image is provisional — held only for a moment. There is no single, stable form to arrive at.
Notes on Method
The Binding and String series draws on principles found in Japanese shibori dyeing. In Enoki's work, this logic is transposed onto the metal plate: string structures the conditions under which corrosion operates, rather than defining the image directly.
The introduction of metal leaf was initially informed by the philosophy of kintsugi. In the current work, however, its role has moved beyond repair. The leaf does not restore or decorate. It enters the print as a material event — present in the moment of impression, and nowhere else.
Biography
Enoki holds an MA (RCA) from the Printmaking Course, Faculty of Fine Art at the Royal College of Art in the UK (1990) and a BA in Art Education from National Okayama University in Japan (1983). She received the Hiroshima Scholarship from the Hiroshima International Cultural Foundation, Inc. (1988–90).
From the early 1990s to the mid 2000s, Enoki worked as an associate professor and lecturer in graphic design and printmaking at various art colleges in Japan.
Since 2022, she has been an Associate Member (ARE) of the Royal Society of Printmakers (RE), London.
Enoki has been exhibiting in Japan and overseas since 1985. Some of the notable exhibitions she has participated in include: RE Original Prints (2023, 2024, 2025, 2026), London Original Print Fair (2023, 2024, 2025, 2026), the Fuji Paper Art Museum solo exhibition "Mayumi Enoki-Bound" (2023), the International Original Print Exhibition (2022, 2023, 2024), the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair (2021, 2022), the Megalo Intaglio Online Exhibition (2020, 2021), the Nishieda Foundation Grant Exhibition, a two-person exhibition as part of the Support to Emerging Curators and Artists programme (2019), and the Yozo Hamaguchi 100th Anniversary International Print Competition and Exhibition (2009).
In 2017, Enoki participated in the London Summer Intensive residency programme at the Slade School of Fine Art / Camden Arts Centre, and presented her work at the London Summer Intensive Showcase at the Camden Arts Centre.
In 2026, her work was shortlisted for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
Enoki also gave a Visiting Artist Talk as part of the Visiting Artist Talk Series at Taipei National University of the Arts, School of Fine Arts in 2016.
Her work is held in public and corporate collections, including the RE Diploma Collection and the Clifford Chance LLP Collection in the UK, and the Osaka Contemporary Art Centre and Kitayama and Company in Japan.
榎真弓は広島市出身の美術家・版画家です。1980年代にプリントメイキングを学んで以来、主にエッチング技法を用いて制作を続けています。
榎は日々の営みに潜む現象を「unpredictability（予測不可能性）」あるいは「randomness（無作為性）」という視点より捉え、素材の可能性を探りながら不可視な事象を作品化することを試みています。
また、1990年代初めから2000年代半ばにかけては、大学や専門学校においてビジュアルアーツ、プリントメイキング、グラフィックデザイン等の教育にも携わりました。
英国王立版画家協会 准会員 (Associate Member of the Royal Society of Printmakers: ARE)。