The gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works on paper by Takuji Hamanaka. The exhibition is the artist's first with the gallery and features mosaic-inspired compositions created with multiple collaged, woodblock-printed papers.
The start of each work involves printing hundreds of sheets of paper in single colors using the 'Bokashi' technique, a method used by 19th Century artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige in which a woodblock is colored unevenly to create the sense of a fade or gradient of color when pressed onto paper. Selecting limited combinations of color, Hamanaka cuts smaller pieces from the initial prints and arranges them onto paper within planned compositions. Bands and curves appear as though spliced together, while sliding rectangles, and irregular cracked surfaces reveal dimensional lattices, suggesting prisms where single colors fade to white.
Color and its absence draw attention to the paper's opacity, as well as more theoretical ideas of windows and grids, and the tension between nature and pure abstraction. Hamanaka's arrangement of the prints is so precise that it disguises the separateness of the collaged papers, creating a sense of continuity across the surface. Multiple gradients of color create a pulsating sense of tonality and dimensionality in each overall composition.
Takuji Hamanaka was born in Hokkaido, Japan in 1968 and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Solo exhibitions include “Spiral Passage”, cfSHE Gallery, Tokyo, Japan , 2018, "Weaving Light," Owen James Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2017, and "Module and Repetition," Sidney Larson Gallery, Columbia College, MO, 2015. Group exhibitions include "Pulled in Brooklyn," International Print Center, New York, NY, and "Focus on Flat Files: Flat," Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY, 2018, among others. He is the recipient of fellowships and artist residencies, which include NYSCA/NYFA (2011, 2017) the KALA Art Institute, Berkeley, CA (2016), and the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH (2013). Hamanaka's works are included in the collections of the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, Sheehan Gallery, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA, Sumitomo Corporation, NY, NY, and Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA, among others.
