Takafumi Ide: ‘Propagate’

Melvile Library Gallery, Stony Brook University, September 10 – 18, 2006

The gallery is completely dark. At first, the experience is purely auditory: an ambient chord progression, a fetal heart beat, and faint, scattered voices speaking intermittently in various languages. As eyes slowly adjust, we begin to discern the composition of the space. There are sixteen framed images, photographs mounted on transparency film, suspended from the ceiling and arranged in a ‘seventeen-gon’ construction, with one door-like opening allowing entry to the installation’s center. Above each image, a small white light pulses along with the sound elements, below hangs a slightly burnt canvas onto which the images are projected as the bulbs light up from above. We realize that the various sounds emanate from small speakers mounted underneath the burned canvases, bouncing off the floor and creating a rich aural environment that fills the gallery space. After several minutes spent exploring the exterior of the installation and adjusting to the almost complete darkness, we find the entryway and move into the circular, womb-like space. Continue reading “Takafumi Ide: ‘Propagate’”

The Mario Veda

The Mario Veda, a series of works executed between March of 2004 and May of 2006,  illustrates what I believe to be an evolution in my intellectual and emotional development, and may represent some of the self knowledge I gained  while living in Springfield, Illinois. Initially a reference to a set of characters from video games on the Nintendo platform, the characters quickly evolved, becoming stand-ins for particular situations and experiences. I’ll leave the particulars to your imagination.

Miscellaneous and Early Works

Here (and in no particular order) you’ll find a bunch of random stuff—early work, academic paintings, and a few prints—that didn’t really fit anywhere else.

Wax On; Wax Off

Wax On/Wax Off: a method of practicing a particular punch blocking technique, developed by the fictional martial arts master Kesuke Miyagi; also a series of paintings I executed in June and July of 2005. I silkscreened wooden panels and then covered them with encaustic (a mixture of oil paint or construction chalk, beeswax and paraffin). In the triptychs, the patterns symbolize three responses to questions posed in the title of the work: yes, maybe, no.

Smear Campaign

This short series of paintings, executed in the Spring of 2005, was inspired by  the Abstraktes Bild series of paintings by Gerhard Richter. I used a set of putty knives to apply thin layers of acrylic paint to dry-erase marker board, resulting in the illusion of depth and creating a striking luminous effect.