Barbara Takenaga is a painter who made her first lithograph at Shark’s in the summer of 2002. Her abstract works are full of repeated, obsessive mark making that energize the surface and imply a depth of space. In Night Visitor, based on a childhood dream, Takenaga draws a “kind of death/creation image- many elements coming together or breaking apart from the whole. The small elements can be seen as tiny spiraling Tibetan wheels of life, hairy rosettes. groovy references to 60’s psychedelia, or as described in the Village Voice, ‘centrifugal eyelashes'”. Shaker Blue is a swirling, cosmic composition that has implied deep space and motion.
Her work processes are exercises in measuring time, a kind of meditative practice, that to an observer seem madly playful and persuasive.
Her latest prints are a series of Untitled hand colored monotypes, which she describes as follows: Making these monotypes was a wonderful new experience for me. They combine a painterly, abstract background with a graphic structure of hard edged, flat forms. Those dark shapes can be read as either positive/foreground space (body silhouettes or curtains) or as negative space that frames a central image (landscapes, columns, creatures). Similarly, the white lines and dots can be viewed as stylized rain, snow, springs and fountains or beaded curtains.
Barbara Takenaga has received many awards and grants including a Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation studio grant, the Massachusetts Artist Fellowship, an Artist’s Resource Trust Grant from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation , and a printmaking residency at the Vermont Studio School.
Takenaga’s work is in the Public Collections below:
The Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR
CU Art Museum, University of Colorado, CO
The DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
Dieu Donne Papermill, New York, NY
The Fine Art Program at the Federal Reserve Board, Washington D,C,
Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
The Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
The Library of Congress, Washington DC
Museum of Outdoor Art, Englewood, CO
Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, NE
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Neuberger Museum, Purchase College SUNY, NY
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA
San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
Sheldon Art Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
United States Embassy in Algeria
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
View or download a complete biography
More information can be found at Barbara Takenaga’s website, www.barbaratakenaga.com.
