Akiko Taniguchi

Sean Caulfield and Akiko Taniguchi have each produced a body of related prints that look to classical mythology as motivation in order to explore themes of transformation, transience and regeneration. Investigating a common visual language the artists have developed compositions that utilize biomorphic and organic shapes that reference the natural world. Their images often move between abstraction and representation creating a shifting quality in which narratives and associations to the real world are implied, but are left in an open-ended and unresolved state.

Although Caulfield and Taniguchi have worked together closely, each artist has approached their work from a slightly different perspective. For example, Taniguchi’s work is more influenced by the natural world and her images, rendered in a bold, graphic language, have strong references to plants, and environmental phenomena such as wind, rain and water. In her most recent suite of prints she has utilized a cage form in order to explore humanities ongoing (and futile) effort to contain, control, and dominate the ever-changing forces of nature. Read more from exhibition statement...

Taniguchi’s abstract visual language is based on her continuous research into forms found in the natural world. She looks at connections and forces of regeneration that exist in different environments. Taniguchi starts off with photographs of natural phenomena such as cloud formations, ice crystals, or cracks found in earth that have been parched by drought. Her hand-generated responses to these photographs heighten the rhythms, patterns and structures occurring in nature. To achieve this, she employs a variety of print-media including collagraph, etching, drypoint, mezzotint and chine collé. Her combination of processes creates complex three-dimensional surfaces of bold black forms, delicate calligraphic lines, and areas suffused with color.

• Related Artist: Sean Caulfield

• Recent Exhibitions: Return to the Surface, September 2008; Aqueous, September 2005