Story by Leila DeVito

Human identity is complex, constructed of myriad layers that can make venturing down the “who am I?” road seem endless and daunting. Still, determined inner journeys can bring life-affirming rewards to the patient traveller, as acclaimed artist Norman Takeuchi has at last discovered.

From Tuesday, April 27, Japanese-Canadian Takeuchi’s latest exhibition Cross Currents will be on show at Cube Gallery (1285 Wellington West), sharing a kind of visual resolution of Takeuchi’s personal conflict with his Japanese heritage.

“If I’m honest about it, this [exhibition] is a kind of atonement for those many years when I didn’t want to be Japanese,” Takeuchi revealed to Guerilla. “I was pushing aside my Japanese heritage and I feel now that I want to make up for that. Now I’m making more honest statements about myself.”

The exhibition features 26 bold, acrylic works that juxtapose two painterly styles representing the artist’s dual identities. Takeuchi stays true to his methods as a contemporary abstract painter from the west, but the underpinning of each piece is traditional Japanese illustration.

“The styles of painting are coexisting and that is a reflection of how I now feel about being Japanese,” explained Takeuchi. “They are working together.”

Takeuchi’s lifelong disconnection from his Japanese heritage stems from his family’s internment in British Columbia during the Second World War. The Takeuchis were among the 22,000 Japanese Canadians (14,000 of whom were born in Canada) forced to leave behind homes and possessions and move to internment camps between 1941 and 1947.

One of the dire and pervasive effects of being treated, in Takeuchi’s words, like “an enemy alien” was that Takeuchi and his family never considered themselves anything but Canadian after the internment.

“We just wanted to not be Japanese,” Takeuchi said.

“Part of this exhibition goes back to seeing comic books of G.I. Joe fighting the Japanese, who were always portrayed with these buck teeth, slanted eyes, and round glasses. It can’t help but affect your self image.”

It was only in 1995 when Takeuchi saw a collection of decorative kimonos at the Canadian Museum of Civilization when he started to reconsider his Asian identity. Fifteen years later, the artist feels that he has at last found a visual vocabulary that fully accepts and represents who he is.

Similar to the rich artwork that adorns a traditional kimono, Takeuchi’s newest paintings have a deliberate layering that builds texture and substance. And the layering has another purpose.

“I thought about images being layered. I sort of saw myself, my life in that way,” said the artist. “I guess everyone’s life is all in different layers.”

The paintings offer a balance of the comical and the ominous. The colourful figures that are rendered in traditional “old Japan” woodblock style and peer out from behind Takeuchi’s contemporary abstractions are almost audible. But there is no clash; although the abstract shapes seem to dominate the compositions, the painting styles are somehow complementary.

“When I first started, the Japanese part was very small, it was almost tacked on,” said the artist. “Gradually that part of it grew but I think it has always been secondary to the abstraction. The Japanese parts are usually just fragments; that’s how I feel about myself.”

Cross Currents gets underway with previews on Tuesday, April 27. A vernissage including an artist talk is slated for Sunday, May 2, from 2-5 p.m.

The Ardent Lover 1

Kabuki No. 2






Distant Landscape