In Takuji Hamanaka’s mosaic-inspired works on paper, multiple sections of monochrome color interlock within dimensional, polychrome compositions. Adapting the ‘Bokashi’ technique of woodblock printing to a contemporary practice, Hamanaka prints multiple papers in color gradients and arranges them onto paper in organic designs that call to mind lattices, prisms, and slopes. Color and its absence draw attention to the paper’s opacity, as well as more theoretical ideas of windows and grids, and the tension between nature and pure abstraction.

Takuji Hamanaka was born in 1968 in Hokkaido, Japan and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. From 1986-89 he trained at the Adachi Institute of Woodblock printmaking in Tokyo, Japan. Hamanaka is the 2022 recipient of a prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and the recipient numerous other grants and awards including The Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant (2021), the Rauschenberg Emergency Grant (2020), and the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Printmaking (2017 and 2011). He was a fellow at the Kala Art institute, Berkeley, CA in 2016 and a Barbara and Thomas Putnam Fellow at MacDowell Colony in 2013. His works are included in the collections of the Fleming Museum, The University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, the New York Presbyterian Hospital, and Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection among others. Recent group exhibitions include 'Focus on the Flatfiles: Between Worlds,' Kentler International Drawing Center, Brooklyn, NY, and 'Here and Now,' The Center for Contemporary Art, Bedminster, NJ. His exhibitions have been reviewed by John Yau (Hyperallergic) and Johanna Fateman (The New Yorker).

The book he mentioned at the end is Early Light by Osamu Dazi.

Takuji Hamanaka , Collapsing Stair, 2021, Cut and pasted woodblock printed papers, mounted on museum board, 32 x 25 1/2 inches, TH1165, Courtesy of the Artist and Kristen Lorello, NY, Photo: Lance Brewer

 Takuji Hamanaka, Stream Mineral, 2021, Cut and pasted woodblock printed papers, mounted on museum board, 32 x 25 1/2 inches, TH1165, Courtesy of the Artist and Kristen Lorello, NY, Photo: Lance Brewer

Takuji Hamanaka, Broken Screen, 2021, Cut and pasted woodblock printed papers, mounted on museum board, 32 x 25 1/2 inches, TH1165, Courtesy of the Artist and Kristen Lorello, NY, Photo: Lance Brewer