Spiral Passage

Artist: Takuji Hamanaka

Takuji Hamanaka is a Japanese artist who practices Japanese traditional water-based woodblock printmaking (Mokuhanga) based on between New York, US and Japan. Hamanaka had been working with numerous contemporary projects as professional printer, after he had achieved the traditional technique in Japan. In his own artistic work, he represents images where new and old - tradition and contemporaneity - and technique and contents conflict, creating geometric forms by using traditional technique. In his recent works he tries to make "repetition" which appears also in the natural phenomenon, reflecting it on his artistic action such as repetitive printings, copied images by them, and numerous combinations of collages made of them. However he believes that none of the repetition is similar to the others and that it creates a form like a spiral, which offers us an occasion to recognize locus of the working procedures and of the phenomenon. This exhibition will be held under the theme "Contemporary Mokuhanga" a concept which has been developing over the world beyond the Japanese traditional technique. The CfSHE Gallery introduces the solo-show of Hamanaka who supports this movement as instructor and also works as artist inside. He will be present at the gallery in Artist's talk on Saturday 10, March at 18.00.