Takuji Hamanaka
Takuji Hamanaka is an artist and printmaker living in Brooklyn, New York. He apprenticed in traditional woodcut printmaking at the Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints in Tokyo Japan. There he learned the traditional Japanese technique for reproductions of old Japanese Ukiyo-e "pictures of the floating world" prints from artists such as Hiroshige. He then started to combine printmaking with collage, using extremely thin Japanese paper called Gampi. In his new series, Takuji Hamanaka has introduced a vibrant sense of light and color to his unique collages. Combined with his ongoing interests in restraint, pattern and perceived movement, Hamanaka continues to explore the possibilities of dimensionality in a flat surface.
His work has been exhibited at the International Print Center, New York; Whitman College, Washington; National Academy of Fine Arts, India; and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland, among others. Takuji Hamanaka has received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, NY; KALA Art Institute Fellowship, CA and has been a resident at the MacDowell Colony, NH; Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, ME; and at Open Studios, Museum of Arts and Design, NY.