McKenzie Fine Art: Barbara Takenaga Exhibition 2003

55 Orchard Street, New York, New York 10002 212 989 5467 fax 212 989 5642


	Barbara Takenaga September 5 - October 4, 2003
	In this exhibition, Takenaga expands the visual vocabulary first used in her Night Paintings, which conveyed the wonder and awe experienced during recurring childhood dreams in which star clusters exploded and imploded. Like those earlier works, the current paintings are dense abstractions composed of discrete elements that radiate or spiral energetically from a central vanishing point. The ebullient expansion or contraction created by the many small dots, lines, orbs, and spiral molecules dancing across the surface is heightened by Takenaga’s dynamic palette. Bright, contrasting colors placed over deep, muted backgrounds produce hypnotic optical effects that bring to mind, yet move beyond, op art and 1960’s psychedelia. In Takenaga’s paintings, optical punch never overshadows the profusion suggested by her sense of cosmic grandeur and the generosity of her mark making.