Meet Taro Takizawa | Artist and Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Taro Takizawa and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Taro, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
Taking risk is a necessity inside and outside of the studio.

I am not so interested in getting too comfortable with my practice yet because I can sense that I can keep growing, developing my practice inn the studio, make improvements in the process.

These risks are fairly small, calculated risks, baby steps, small things that I will try in the studio so that I can learn something new without having a catastrophic failure. It’s about being efficient in my practice since I am often busy with teaching and other responsibilities, I cannot afford to plunge in head first without knowing the outcome.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My work is an intuitive process of making patterns by drawing, painting, carving, cutting, and printing. I am constantly mentally engaged with how I want to move. I look for formal reactions, ideas between the contemporary and personal history, perspective, thought, Japanese heritage, and permanent memory. My work is about my fascination with water, its ripples, and its reflections. I am recreating my emotional reactions to how water seems to flow freely and continuously, by using recursive printmaking processes and mark-making techniques to imitate that movement.
The patterns on the installation works and prints are forever repeating patterns in my head. And the process of creating these images is also a forever-repeating process of drawing, cutting, carving, and printing.

I got to where I am today with persistence, generous people, and going back and forth between self belief and doubts.

I am constantly searching and applying for teaching jobs (since I am not on a tenure-track), exhibitions, residencies and other opportunities while teaching 3 or 4 classes during the semester. I feel lucky to have good people I had a chance to connect to. These people supports me in various ways by collecting my work, recommending me, or invite me to be part of a group exhibition.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Coffee and pastry break at one of our favorite places (Juno, Anderson & Maillard, or Anderson Bakery). Walk around Nørrebro, Assistens Cemetery is great when it’s nice outside.

A visit to the botanical garden or the art museum, they are basically right in the middle of the city next to each other so we can decide once we get there.

A plunge into the cold harbor water, and sauna is a must activity at some point.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Big shout out to my family and friends. Dusty Herbig and Holly Greenberg who are my MFA mentors and former colleagues, and the rest of the School of Art community at Syracuse University where I also worked as an instructor. PrattMWP community where I also taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor, Ken Marchione, Audrey Hansen Taylor, Veronica Byun, Shannon Sockbridge to be specific. It was my pleasure serving and being part of this art community. My former undergraduate and graduate students, and a lot of my artist friends across the country. The people in the art community are one of the most generous people I know.

Website: https://cargocollective.com/tarotakizawa

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tarotakizawart/

Image Credits
All photo credits goes to Kailee Robinson @kaileerobphoto kaileerobinsonphotography.com