Barbara Takenaga - Paintings

March 4 - 29, 2008

Barbara Takenaga creates works that encompass incandescent renderings of cosmic, subatomic systems and the dual processes of creation and destruction. Her paintings rely upon an obsessive process, and conjure potent apparitions of spiral shapes juxtaposed against bright balls of thoroughly disjunctive scale, which dance and pulsate in an entrancing, hallucinatory space.

With a spare lexicon of radial symmetry, dots, and lines, Takenaga creates dense pieces imbued with surfaces that are both palpable and dimensional, in which patterns simultaneously come together and break from the whole, and serenity and discord inhabit the same space. Takenaga's vividly imagined, self-contained realms are populated with dots of bright color-akin to everything from molecules to fractals to celestial cluster formations-which map a route to a distant, primal center. Although they may appear, at first glance, to be divorced from a cultural or human context, these tiny elements reference Op Art, DNA modeling, textile patterns, and computer-generated simulacra, and reflect the renewed interest in abstract painting and its relationship to science and nature.

Barbara Takenaga lives and works in New York and Williamstown, MA. Her solo exhibitions in 2007 include McKenzie Fine Art, New York; and the Brattleboro Museum of Art, Vermont. Her recent group exhibitions include It's Gouache and Gouache Only, Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York, 2008; Midnight Full of Stars, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, New Jersey, 2008; and Big Bang! Abstract Painting for the 21st Century, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, 2007. Takenaga has been featured in publications such as Art in America, Art News, and The New York Times. This is her third solo show at Gregory Lind Gallery.