Barbara Takenaga
White Out II, 2009
Acrylic on linen
42 × 36 inches
Courtesy of Gregory Lind Gallery

Retail value: $15,000 

Barbara Takenaga’s paintings have been described as kaleidoscopic and psychedelic, but their hard-won luminosity speaks more to Takenaga’s commitment to crafting optically dazzling worlds than to her interest in the mystical or divine. Weaving together complicated patterns of graduated dots, Takenaga transforms the artist’s simple vocabulary of lines, circles, and graduated color scales into paintings that straddle the line between science and nature, between detail and disorder.

Often compared to Op Art, pointillism, and even geometric fractals, Takenaga’s painted constellations reflect her unusual, fluid approach to the acrylic medium. With tides of undulating waves and eddies that remind one of cellular replication, she generates the illusion of movement while keeping the shapes crisply articulated. Swirling, tumescent rivers of color seem to capture and transport the lustrous pearls that are duplicated across the canvas. Critics have often remarked upon Takenaga’s ability to create worlds at once cosmic and cellular, combining, in New York Times critic Ken Johnson’s words, “a delicate touch and extreme industry.”

In Whiteout II, Takenaga recasts her characteristic opulence in grayscale—albeit illuminated with crystalline roses and greens and accented with emerald-colored pearls. A sensory topography, Whiteout II exemplifies Takenaga’s exploration of the physical and abstract qualities of painting. Obsessive and additive, Whiteout II is also diaphanous and mellifluous. It is both classic and unusual within Takenaga’s oeuvre. 

Barbara Takenaga was born in North Platte, Nebraska. She is the Mary A. and William Wirt Warren Professor of Art at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts. She divides her time between Williamstown and New York, where she maintains a studio. Her work has been widely exhibited at institutions including MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art), North Adams; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; National Academy Museum, New York; Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia; and the International Print Center, New York. Recent awards include the Wauson Fellowship from the FOR-SITE Foundation and the Eric Isenburger Annual Art Award from the National Academy Museum. She is represented in the permanent collections of the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; the Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney; and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, among others. 

SJMA acquired Takenaga’s Wheel (SJ), 2011, last year. It is currently on view in the special exhibition Local Color. 

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