May 28 – June 30, 2009

Pine Trees, 2008, Sumi ink on hemp paper, mounted on wood panel, 4 x 6 ft.

M.Y. ART PROSPECTS is pleased to present a solo exhibition entitled Viewing Light by Takako Azami. The exhibition features a dozen large and medium size ink-on-paper paintings.

Azami is fascinated with trees in the natural environment. Receiving the light and bending in the wind, trees are vulnerable, pliant and strong. Their structure is one of nature’s wonders, both chaotic and harmonious. For more than ten years, Azami has been exploring this single subject in her large sumi ink paintings, capturing close-up views of pines, plums, bamboos, and maples.

Initially drawn from life, Azami’s tree paintings are atypical and abstract with rhythmical repetition of dots and lines. Trunks, branches, and leaves are represented in stylized shapes and spatial relationships. Her compositions focus on movement and interaction with temporal and intangible elements, especially the ever-changing dynamic of natural light.

“The morning sunray was so clear. The trees from my apartment window looked different with every passing second. From 9:30am, I sat for three hours by the window and observed the sunlight in the street, the winter trees, and the windows of the apartment across the way” --- Takako Azami

In the studio, using the rich black and subtle gray tonality of sumi ink and slightly-textured white chalk pigments, Azami revisits trees' dynamics by moving a paintbrush across oversized, high-absorbent hemp paper. She marks dots—some as large as a fist—and draws lines with various widths from the back of the paper, letting the ink saturate but not completely through the paper. In layers, these marks overlap and collide with each other, charging the space with energy and rhythm. This method also reveals to the viewer the chronological reverse order of her art-making process.

Takako Azami was born in 1964 in Saitama Prefecture, a district north of Tokyo. She holds a BFA in Japanese-style painting from Tama University of Fine Arts. She has been invited to a number of important museum exhibitions, including “Suibokuga Today,” the Suiboku Museum, Toyama (2004 and 2009), “Post Nihongaism: It was Once Called Nihonga,” Nerima Art Museum, Tokyo (2004), both in Japan, and “Kaleidoscope: Abstraction in 10 Ways” at New Jersey City University gallery (2008). She has held gallery solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Moscow, and New York since 1993. As a recipient of fellowships from Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan, Freeman Foundation and the Pola Art Foundation, she participated in New York's International Studio and Curatorial Program and the Vermont Studio Center from 2008 to 2009.