Artist Lecture: Taro Takizawa

Taro Takizawa is an artist who focuses on printmaking, wall vinyl installations, drawings and 2D designs. He is fascinated with blending the boundaries of contemporary studio practice and traditional processes, printmaking and installations, influenced by traditional Japanese patterns from textile designs, architecture and crafts. Taro is currently visiting faculty in UNC’s Department of Art and Art History.

Artist Statement

My work is an intuitive process of making patterns by drawing, painting, carving, cutting, and printing. I am constantly mentally engaged with how I want to move. I look for formal reactions, ideas between the contemporary and personal history, perspective, thought, Japanese heritage, and permanent memory.

My work is about my fascination with water, its ripples, and its reflections. I am recreating my emotional reactions to how water seems to flow freely and continuously, by using recursive printmaking processes and mark-making techniques to imitate that movement.

The patterns on the installation works and prints are forever repeating patterns in my head. And the process of creating these images is also a forever-repeating process of drawing, cutting, carving, and printing.

The work is a tool to rediscover my Japanese history and culture. I realized that I didn’t pay great attention to my surroundings and, after moving to the United States, everyone asked me questions about where I came from, which I didn’t have a straight answer for. I had to research my own country, its culture, and its history to answer common questions from both historical and cultural viewpoints. What I became fascinated by studying history is patterns from architecture, metal works, prints, and fabric designs. The patterns used in my work show the ripple, steam, and flow of water, which is important because of the Japanese relationship with water. I am influenced by Japanese art, especially the Japanese block prints (Ukiyo-e) from the 17th century through the 19th century; waves and rivers, how these waters are rendered, fascinates me. These flow patterns show up in my work constantly.

I create my work by transmitting energy and emotion on to the surface– whether on a paper or a wall– by reacting and responding to the previous marks I’ve made on the surface, which usually consists of cuts or carvings. I relate to the Zen priests’ practices to enhance their concentration by raking the gravel of Zen gardens, and there are similarities between my work and our mindsets. Thus, I focus on the present by making work, with the therapeutic process of repeating.

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