Imura Art Gallery Tokyo presents Takeshi Tanaka's Solo Exhibition, "Let's Begin the Tales of the Night."

Tanaka poses a question about the term "Japanese paintings." He quotes Hishida Shunso's remark,"I believe that the day will come when all works by the Japanese will be considered "Japanese paintings" as those created by the Japanese based on the ideas by the Japanese" and claims that it is important to "continue to create what the artist strongly believes is the authentic Japanese painting."

In his representative work series, the "Sixteen Erotic Figures", a woman obsessed wit sexual desire shows a symbolic gesture of mudra with her hands while plants and flowers taken from the copies of Kano style paintings are scattered around her. In this manner, Tanaka transforms his paintings to modern piece of work grounded in the Western painting approach while inheriting the traditional expressions of Japanese paintings.

At this exhibition, Tanaka's works created in the theme of desire of the night as well as some new works including the "Sixteen Erotic Figures" series will be exhibed. In the darkness of the night when one's earthly desires surface up, how would a human being face his or her own desires? In a late winter night, we hope that you can immerse yourself in the world of the night depicted by Tanaka as you listen to your tales of the night.

*image (left)
© Takeshi Tanaka
courtesy of the artist and Imura Art Gallery