YORIKO TAKABATAKE

Water presents a wandering expression amidst the mundane everyday.

It fluctuates and wavers, falls in droplets, and emerges as a bubbling stream.

Fascinated by its vigorous strength, I find myself pleasantly playing with water.

Using the surface of the water as my canvas, I create bubbles, apply layers of color, and infuse it with gusts of air.

I paint a pattern of dots with the water.

I create shapes along with forces invisible to the eye, such as the gravitational forces of earth and the moon.

The clear and pure water that rises from great nature circulates through the passage of time and permeates every corner of this world.

ShugoArts is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Yoriko Takabatake, Fountain, on April 14, 2018.

Yoriko Takabatake came to be known for her highly original works with a 2014 solo exhibition in the project space at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery. In her three years at the Graduate School of Tokyo University of the Arts, where she earned a doctorate in 2016, she focused her research activities mainly on the work of Anni Albers, while in her own work she layered thread-like paint drips so the paintings resembled textiles, and at times blew and scattered the paint before it dried, developing a style distinguished both by these unique processes and their elaborate and elegant results. In this exhibition of new paintings, Takabatake takes this style to a new level, presenting works that continue to weave thread-like paint drips while more actively embracing the forces of chance.

Takabatake has entitled this exhibition Fountain. Her workspace is somehow different from a typical artistʼs studio, with a scientific, technical atmosphere like a cutting-edge experimental painting lab where the works crystallize or are biologically generated. This studio indeed resembles a Fountain from which the paintings spring. As a young arty girl, Takabatake was fascinated with the world of textiles while also avidly and thoroughly studying the history of painting. Having absorbed and processed so much, she was primed to develop her own methodologies and themes, and her recent paintings have a vast and ambitious vision that counterbalances the initial impression of dauntingly dense intricacy.

In late 20th-century painting there was a seemingly inevitable succession of innovative approaches: Jackson Pollockʼs action painting, Morris Louisʼs staining, Kazuo Shiragaʼs foot painting, Atsuko Tanakaʼs circles connected by webs, Yayoi Kusamaʼs proliferating net paintings, Minimalism, and the process of painting while stretching canvas that Masato Kobayashi (among Takabatakeʼs teachers) developed. In the 21st century, Yoriko Takabatake is on the same intrepid mission, developing a compelling and deeply original painting style.

The current show is based on the artistʼs dialectical principle of ‘making, destroying, and remaking,’ and actively incorporates randomness, but without sacrificing the elegance that has characterized her work thus far. In the past she has used air currents, but after executing a series of experiments, explorations and calibrations with a rigor of which only she seems to be capable, this time water and gravity are employed as the agents of chance.

This is the artistʼs second show at this gallery following a solo exhibition in 2016. Fresh, ambitious and authentic, Yoriko Takabatake is an artist to watch, and we are proud to present her latest works at ShugoArts. We hope that you will consider covering the event in your media outlet.