Barbara Takenaga

The title of the show “Two Storied“ is a play on the physical space of the upstairs and downstairs galleries, as well as the body of work exhibited on each floor. The upper floor paintings employ Takenaga’s process of combining random flows of paint that are reined in by structure and repetition. Lines are often determined by the flow of paint and visual elements can be mirrored or transferred,. As a former printmaker, the systemic approach is important in her work, which is often made in series and is more graphic than painterly. The work resides somewhere in between abstraction and representation – and can be read in a range of possibilities: cosmic views, night landscapes, or cascading springs/fountains of water.

The small paintings on the lower floor are influenced by Takenaga’s love of Japanese woodblock prints. She has long admired the graphic invention of those images, and during the pandemic lockdown started this series of small homages. Details of the prints have been traced, transferred, mirrored, rotated, and mediated through random applications of paint, echoing her general process. These “transfer” images carry a familiarity and yet sit in that place between naming and formal color and shape.