Takao Tanabe, “ Nootka Afternoon,” 1993
woodblock print on paper (collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, photo courtesy of Vancouver Art Gallery)
Takao Tanabe: Printmaker: Another Side of a Canadian Master
With works dating from 1948 all the way through to 2023, Surrey Art Gallery takes an intense look at another side of venerable West Coast artist Takao Tanabe’s practice.
Although the 97-year-old artist is largely celebrated for paintings that blur the line between abstraction and realism, Takao Tanabe: Printmaker, organized by the Kelowna Art Gallery, delves into his ink-based output.
Guest curator Ian Thom, who helmed Vancouver Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria’s major 2005 survey, Takao Tanabe: Life & Work, returns to the subject, presenting more than 60 prints from the Kelowna Art Gallery collection, as well as works from the Vancouver Art Gallery and Winnipeg Art Gallery’s collections.
While the media employed may differ from that used to create his most celebrated pieces, the results very much fit within Tanabe’s oeuvre.
“As well as the tranquil, contemplative portrayals of the Gulf Islands and the Albertan plains for which he is widely known, the exhibition also includes screen-printed hard-edge colour abstractions from the 1960s, monotypes (single editions) of natural forms from the 1950s, and even some of the physical woodblocks used to produce his more recent prints,” said the Surrey Art Gallery in a news release.
Upcoming events connected with the show include an exhibition tour and talk with Ian Thom and Sherri Kajiwara on April 24 at 7 pm, and Peter Braune’s talk and printmaking workshop on May 11 at 2 pm.
Takao Tanabe: Printmaker is on view until June 2.
Installation of “The Problem of the Moon” in the AGSM Main Gallery (photo by Doug Derksen)
The Problem Of The Moon: A Celestial Challenge
Given the perilous state of affairs across much of the world these days, it should seem as though the moon is the least of our worries. Nonetheless, the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon has endeavoured to investigate The Problem of the Moon, a group exhibition on view until June 8.
As anyone who’s pointed a smartphone camera at our closest celestial neighbour can attest to, one of the biggest issues with the moon is just getting a decent picture of the darn thing. Even dedicated professionals are challenged by our often-overexposed satellite, a conundrum baked into Brandon-based photographer Doug Derksen’s work, which, according to the AGSM, “contends with the moon’s own light in order to replicate the night sky, and in doing so emphasizes the dissimilarity of the camera lens and the human eye.”
Elsewhere in the exhibition, artists take on the moon vis-a-vis the metaphorical plain. Carrie Allison, a Dartmouth, Nova Scotia artist, relates the “paradoxical” gravitational pull of the Earth and moon to that the bond between mother and child, while Montreal’s Mike Patten’s orb embedded with flags points to the “absurdity of settler ownership and reveals an expansive vision made possible by an uncolonial view of the cosmos.”
The exhibition also features works by Saskatchewan’s Hanna Yokozawa Farquharson, Winnipeg’s Paul Robles, and Montreal’s AJ Little, Oriah Scott and Bettina Forget. ■
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