RYU TAKEDA

Ryu Takeda’s paintings evoke the imagery of accidental stains or scars. He remarks that the memories and characteristics of the rural forests from his childhood are expressed not only visually, but through sound, smell and touch. Takeda, who often compares the act of painting to an excavation, paints as if to unearth the unconscious realm that has been lost through verbalization and classification.

This exhibition presents paintings, the artist’s primary medium in recent years, together with ceramic works, another medium that plays a vital role in his practice. While Takeda’s paintings remain the core focus, wall-mounted reliefs and three-dimensional works are also interspersed throughout the gallery, creating a composition that traverses the boundaries between two and three-dimensional forms.

Takeda has provided the following text for this show, his second solo exhibition at KOSAKU KANECHIKA.

Before fully immersing myself in creating works for this solo exhibition, I traveled around the San’in region. As I gazed out the train window at the landscape along the Sea of Japan, the strikingly vivid reddish-brown color of Sekishu tiles on the rooftops in the nearby towns suddenly caught my eye amid the greenery. This rich, glossy red color is produced by the roof tiles’ glaze, which is made from Kimachi stone that has been quarried in the San’in region since ancient times.

The four corners of the rooftops are adorned with onigawara upon which are carved the face of Japanese deity Daikokuten. Though celebrated in Japan as one of Japan’s traditional Seven Gods of Fortune, Daikokuten originally stems from the Hindu deity Shiva, which, over time, became merged with Okuninushi, the Shinto god of Japanese mythology enshrined at Izumo Taisha, due to the fact that the Japanese characters in their names can be read as either “Okuni” or “Daikoku.” Just as these distinct deities blended together, unique forms and colors emerge when local earth and stone intermingle with human craftsmanship. It is this fusion of nature and history that manifests in those glossy red tiles. Swaying gently as I rode on a local train on the San’in Line, I found myself drawing parallels between the passing scenery and my own work.

For Takeda, ceramics is not merely an experimental medium—it is an act that reaffirms the physicality essential to his paintings. Takeda, who has been very familiar with the use of clay since his childhood, notes, “Even when I am painting, I somehow get the feeling that I am molding.” True tothis feeling, in addition to the drawings he creates in preparation for his paintings, he also keeps personal notes in which he records the tactile feedback and sense of volume he experiences when carving clay. These notes capture the pure sensations he feels with his hands as he sculptsforms, and not a preconceived image of the finished work.

The ceramic works presented at this show emerged from the interplay between two and three dimensions, combining interpretations of painted imagery with the physical presence of sculpted form. The exhibition space in which these elements resonate adds further multi-layered depth to Takeda’s artistic expression. Produced through the physicality involved in crossing back and forth between painting, sculpture, drawing, and modeling, this body of work represents a vital new chapter for the artist’s practice.

We cordially invite you to Ryu Takeda’s solo exhibition “Miner’s Fog,” featuring approximately fifteen new paintings and ceramic works.