In Ottawa: Norman Takeuchi's "All In Good Time" exhibition

Exhibition

In Person

De Montigny Contemporary

Suite 101, 858 Bank Street Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Date: Sept. 20, 2024 – Nov. 17, 2024

About the Exhibition | All In Good Time

After spending many years addressing the issues of being Japanese Canadian through the fusion of Japanese images and abstract shapes, Norman Takeuchi decided the time had come to once again take on the challenge of making images that had not existed before.
In this series, Takeuchi returns to his experimental sketches and uses them as a starting point to deepen his sense of abstraction. Through this process, he embarks on producing original compositions built of new shapes and colours that evolved from his previous work to invent original images. He maintains connections with some recurring shapes but plays with them to find new ways of picture-making. Leaning into this new direction, he has pared down his colour palette to black, emphasizing form over meaning, and incorporating red to add a spark and sense of light to the compositions.

Takeuchi’s exploration of abstraction is a challenge that drives his practice and satisfies his need to invent and evolve. Takeuchi affirms his evolution: "At the core of my work is the exploration of abstraction. The paintings in All in Good Time are the latest stage in my ongoing experimentation for invention and discovery.”

About Norman Takeuchi C.M. (B. 1937, Vancouver, British Columbia)

Originally from Vancouver, some of his earliest memories are of the interior of BC where his parents were forced to relocate during World War II. Ultimately graduating from the Vancouver School of Art in 1962, he went to London, England, to concentrate on painting, and again in 1967 with a Canada Council grant. In 1996, he left a design career to focus on art. He has since participated in many solo and group exhibitions. His work is placed in permanent collections of the Royal Ontario Museum, Canadian War Museum, Ottawa Art Gallery, Canada Council Art Bank, City of Ottawa, Carleton University Art Gallery, and in private collections in Canada and abroad. In 2023, Takeuchi was inducted into the Order of Canada and had a major retrospective at the Ottawa Art Gallery, Shapes In Between, curated by Catherine Sinclair, Sachiko Okuda, and Bryce Kanbara.