UNews - Takao Tanabe

Collage aux folles in Christou Gallery

trevor.kenney — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:59:29 +0000

The Helen Christou Gallery exposes compelling layers of the U of L Art Collection with Collage aux folles, on display from June 11 to Aug. 28 in the Helen Christou Gallery.

The exhibition explores collage as a formative creative process and elevated fine art technique using enticing selections from both Canadian and American artists.

"The collage process embodies the ideas of postmodernism more perfectly than perhaps any other in contemporary art making," says exhibition curator Jane Edmundson. "Though the technique is as ancient as paper itself, collage rose to fine art status in the early 20th century when Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque employed it in their Cubist compositions to heighten the visual collision between media and the surface plane of the canvas."

"The technique continued to be popular with Dada artists, who created the first photomontages that have since become ubiquitous in the current digital age of Photoshop pastiche," she says. "Collage's sustained popularity with conceptual artists has not been limited to visual media; cinematic montage and the samples and remixes of popular music also demonstrate how this process of appropriated layering is prevalent in our daily lives."

Featuring works by Ron Kitai, Deborah Shackleton, Takao Tanabe, Tony Urquhart and Kim Kozzi of Fast Wurms, this exhibition showcases a wide example of collage styles and forms.

"The artwork I chose ranges from quick sketches to fully realized objects, demonstrating how collage has been utilized as both a formative creative process and elevated fine art technique," says Edmundson. "While some make use of found objects or re-appropriated print images, others focus on overlapping texture, colour and shape to arrive at a more abstract final product."

To learn more visit: www.uleth.ca/artgallery

Tanabe captures essence of landscape

trevor.kenney — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:08:55 +0000

Takao Tanabe is one of the many outstanding artists featured in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's renowned Art Gallery. The Gallery, located behind the Sorel Etrog Moses sculpture in the Centre for Fine Arts on level 6, houses one of the finest art collections in the entire country.

Takao Tanabe

Born in Prince Rupert in 1926, Takao Tanabe spent the early part of his life interned with his family and other Japanese-Canadians in the B.C. Interior as a result of the Second World War. After the end of the war and having worked several menial jobs, Tanabe decided to go to art school. Sixty years later, Tanabe's work can be found in more than 50 public and 120 corporate collections around the world.

Tanabe was known throughout the '50s and '60s as an abstract painter, studying with such well-known abstract expressionists as Hans Hofmann. Tanabe's artistic development underwent a dramatic shift in the late 1960s when he began to move away from abstraction towards a concentration on landscape painting. The artist sought a simple landscape form, which he could execute in a spontaneous manner . . . one 'go' or one application of paint.

Throughout his career, Takao Tanabe has received numerous awards, including Doctor of Letters (Hon.) from the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, Doctor of Fine Arts (Hon.) from The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, and the Order of British Columbia. His work and the example set by an esteemed career as an artist, art educator and administrator were recognized by the Governor General in April of 1999 when Tanabe was made a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2003, Tanabe was the recipient of The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Since 1980, the artist has lived and worked in Errington on Vancouver Island.

Tanabe will be one of the featured artists at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Main Gallery in A Little History on the Prairies, opening in January 2011.

Lasting Images - Takao Tanabe

trevor.kenney — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:14:52 +0000

Born in Prince Rupert in 1926, Takao Tanabe spent the early part of his life interned with his family and other Japanese-Canadians in the B.C. Interior as a result of the Second World War. After the end of the war and having worked several menial jobs, Tanabe decided to go to art school. Sixty years later, Tanabe's work can be found in more than 50 public and 120 corporate collections around the world.

Tanabe will be one of the featured artists at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Main Gallery in A Little History on the Prairies, opening in January 2011.

UNews - Takao Tanabe

Collage aux folles in Christou Gallery

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Tanabe captures essence of landscape

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Lasting Images - Takao Tanabe

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