Akane Takayama,

Antipathy is a strongly opposed feeling and in this work what is seemingly natural is clearly unnatural. When the parts are considered, the form studied and the scale weighed up then
there should be no way that we feel this sculpture to be an act of nature.

Takayama's work carries the idea of juxtaposition, a dynamic between shapes, materials and construct which brings seemingly implausible connections together. The inspiration for her work comes from her identity as a person from one culture who has settled, lived and worked in another culture. As she has said, "If you leave the land and place of your birth to live in a culture that is alien to you then there has to be something wrong in your relationship with your cultural homeland."

This sense of 'something wrong' whispers constantly in Takayama's work. Her sculptures are possessed of clean precise lines which flow through the form with stunning precision. She places the incongruous into a harmonic partnership which is contained and made credible by the disciplined perspectives she always maintains. The questions which naturally spring from seeing her work are compelling however and when presented with the sculptures themselves, the viewer becomes drawn into a world of colour painted in a pallette made vibrant by the shadows created in the shapes.


Akane Takayama
(b. 1957, Tokyo, Japan.)




"Antipathy" (2005) Akane Takayama

Go To Akane's Web Site

Video Courtesy of Artists for Human Rights