Roslyn Kean is one of Australia's most respected and admired printmakers. Whereas many artists of her generation were inspired by the modernist mythology of the rejection of tradition and proceeded to overthrow the prevailing norms in art, Kean in her art practice sought to embrace an ancient printmaking tradition and to give it new life within a contemporary context. After initial art training in Sydney followed by further study at The Slade in London, it was while studying in Tokyo and already aged in her early thirties, that Kean was completely seduced by traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking mokuhanga and became deeply immersed in Japanese cultural traditions. Now, almost forty years later, Kean is an internationally recognised practitioner of mokuhanga and is revered by her peers as an outstanding print artist, an inspirational teacher and a sage. When Kean developed her expertise in mokuhanga techniques and became deeply immersed in Japanese cultural traditions, she also brought with her a passion for geometry and colour into her artmaking.
