Taro Takizawa
After a Light Rain, relief print, 14x11”, 2018
“The gradient in the sky when the sun goes down resonates with me.”
Taro Takizawa is an artist living and working in Syracuse, New York (USA). His approach to color is playful and experimental and his approach to printmaking incorporates a balance of structure and play. Taro’s intuitive, continuous and adjustable work is created with relief, intaglio and lithographic printmaking processes. His work also involves vinyl wall installations, site-specific murals and drawing. Taro is fascinated by patterns and repeated lines, and his current work focuses on an efficient and simple relief prints that incorporate a split-fountain flat, carved patterns and layers of ghost printed patterns. The gradients in his work are inspired by the sky and the reflection of the sky on water.
Are there specific associations towards color in your work?
My color palette began through inspiration from Ukiyo-e. The colors used in traditional Ukiyo-e prints that represent nature, people and their clothing–sometimes vibrant, sometimes darker–fascinate me. I also think about the colors in the sky a lot. The gradient in the sky when the sun goes down resonates with me.
Kiseki stone lithograph and screenprint, 19x13”, 2019
Beyond Reflection, relief print, 17x24”, 2018
How does the printmaking process itself relate to how you work with color?
Technically I want to cut corners where I can. Instead of having multiple blocks and layers for different colors, I prefer using split-fountain to use 2-3 colors in one layer in the printing process to shorten my production time. My laziness and certain limitation in print made me think of being more efficient. I believe there are opportunities within this limitation in printmaking, often allowing me to focus on fewer things while I'm working on a print.
Where do you reside between technical and intuitive in your work as an artist using color?
Printmaking requires me go back and forth between being technical and intuitive. I'm definitely more on the intuitive side but print media disciplines me from going out of control. I enjoy the process and respect the traditions which makes me work technically on different facet on the process (I cannot be intuitive in stone polishing, etching, carving etc). I believe these qualities in printmaking, the necessity to make you follow specific steps in the process helps me build and hold quality in my work.
Island, relief print, 17x24”, 2019