ARTIST INFO
CHRONOLOGY | EXHIBITIONS | STATEMENT


CHRONOLOGY (back to top)
1986-’89 I apprenticed at Adachi woodblock studio in Tokyo where I learned traditional printing technique by printing reproduction of old japanese master print such as Hiroshige, Hokusai and Utamaro among others.

After Adachi I worked as freelance printer in Tokyo, printed edition for Japanese printmaker such as Seiko Kawachi, Fumio Kitaoka among others.

1991 I came to NY and started to work for Watanabe studio where I worked on edition project for Sol lewitt and other artists. While I worked for edition project I have been making my own paintings/prints.

1995 I became freelance printer, worked for various artists and since then started to offer woodblock class out of my studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn NY.

1996 to present I taught/teach water-based woodblock at various institutions in the states including Manhattan graphics center (NY), Pyramid Atlantic (MD) and center for book art (NY) among others.

Currently giving printing workshops in universities and museums in the U.S.

EXHIBITIONS (back to top)
Solo Exhibition:
2004 Dublin Arts Council, OH

Group Exhibitions:
2014 Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA
2012 Print Without Pixels, Theo Ganz Studio, Beacon, NY
2012 The National Academy of Fine Art, New Delhi, India
2011 New Prints 2011/Autumn, International Print Center
         New York, NY. Traveled to University of Texas in
         Austin, TX in 2012
2011 Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland
2011 Sanbao International Printmaking Biennial Exhibition in          Jingdezhen, China
2011 Benefit Art Exhibition for Japan Disaster Relief Fund
         The Japanese American Association of New York,
2010 New Prints 2010/Spring, International Print Center
         New York, NY
2010 New Prints 2010/Autumn, International Print Center
         New York , NY. Traveled to University of Texas in
         Austin, TX
2010 I will cut thrU: Pochoirs, Carvings, and Other Cuttings,
         Center for Book Arts, NY. Traveled to Sarah
         Lawrence, Bronxville, NY
2009 The Rahway Guild of the Arts, New Jersey, NJ
2009 New Prints 2009/Winter, International Print Center
         New York, NY. Traveled to Columbia College,
         Chicago, IL
2009 Print Types, Park University, Parkville, MI
2008 Japanese –American Printmakers, Ft. Hays State
         University, Hays, KS
         Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, MI
2006 20th Anniversary Exhibition Manhattan Graphic Center,
         New York, NY
2005 Fall Collectors Weekend, Maryland Arts Atrium at
         Pyramid Atlantic Center, Silver Springs, MD 
2005 Union College, NY
2004 New Prints 2004/Autum, International Print Center
         New York, NY
2003 Center for Contemporary Printmaking, CT
2002 The Rotunda Gallery, New York, NY
2000 The Rotunda Gallery, New York, NY
1999 Montserrat College of Art Gallery, MA

Grants:
2011 New York Foundation for the Arts,
         Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts
2013 MacDowell Colony

Teaching/Workshop Experience:
Manhattan Graphics Center, New York, NY
Center for Book Art, New York, NY
Pyramid Atlantic, Silver Spring, MD
The Ink Shop Printmaking Center & Olive Branch Press, Ithaca, NY
Center for Contemporary Printmaking, South Norwalk, CT
Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ
Dublin Arts Council, Dublin, OH
American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Nagasawa Artist Park, Japanese Woodblock Printmaking Program, Awaji Japan YMCA, Geenpoint Brooklyn, NY
Alfred University, NY

Collections:
2003 Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, NY

ARTIST STATEMENT (back to top)
I have been working with biomorphic images in both painting and print over the course of the last several years. To me biomorphic images seem to manifest the fundamental essence of living things, evoking the constant movement of organisms within themselves.

My paintings create complex, intertwining networks that sometimes look partly human, partly vegetable. I hope I have succeeded in shaping some kind of crossbreed of the two. There is also an ambiguity to the images that hopefully allows for broader interpretation.

To the contrary, simplicity is what I focus on when I make a print. The images in the prints are lean and stripped down compared to my paintings. The minimal elements in my prints do directly correspond to the layered shapes I work with in the paintings but achieve a very different effect.

The surface of the printed image has always attracted me. I feel that there is a sort of tension on the surface of a print. The result of the printing process is that only what is necessary is retained on the paper, nothing more, and nothing less. It is different from what is painted even when the same color is used. Colors in prints do not just sit on the paper; rather they go deep into the paper. I like the unified surface and physical appearance that the printmaking process can convey.

My interest in printmaking is shifting from making simple images to constructing repetitious forms and patterns by applying more and more layers of color and shape. I want to add emphasis to the structural patterns that are derived from the accumulation of simple units. I want the forms to pass from the geometric to the plastic. I want to weave a sense of time and space into that structural pattern. That would be a very affirmative achievement for me.

-Takuji Hamanaka New York, 2005

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