Description
Barbara Takenaga’s expansive visual palette is full of dense abstractions. Peppered with discrete elements which radiant and spiral outward from a central vanishing point, and dots, lines, and orbs that dance across the surface of her paintings like variables in an elegant calculus, Takenaga’s pieces radiate with an aura of whimsy and the unknown. Dazzling, circus-like colors ignite, expand, and contract against muted backdrops—rendering a hallucinogenic power similar to the psychedelic optical art of the 60s. Her perfectly calculated shapes also approximate the uniformity of fractals and microscopic organisms. Takenaga’s deftly conveyed sense of cosmic grandeur is especially potent in her Night paintings, which depict the wonder and awe that result from scrutiny of the nighttime sky.