MISAKO & ROSEN is pleased to announce our fourth exhibition with artist Kazuyuki Takezaki. Takezaki is presently based in Shodojima, Japan. A selection of Takezaki’s recent exhibitions includes “Solo Show”, The Steak House DOSKOI, Tokyo (2015), “The Way of Painting”, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo (2014 Group exhibition), “Depicting the Indelible Japanese Landscape”, Musee Bernard Buffet, Shizuoka (2014 Group exhibition), “Now Japan”, Kunsthal KADE, Amersfoort (2013 Group exhibition), “Real Japanesque The Unique World of Japanese Contemporary Art”, The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2012 Group exhibition); Takezaki co-curated together with fellow artists the “Imprisoned, Jailbreak” series of exhibitions, presented first at XYZ Collective, Tokyo (2013) and subsequently (2016) at various venues throughout the city of Tokyo.

“Heaven Hill”, the exhibition title is drawn both from Takezaki’s personal experience as well as pre-existing language used to designate a commercial object in the world. This appropriation of language, “Heaven Hill”, “Rawlings” was present as far back as Takezaki’s 2008 exhibition with the gallery. Takezaki’s approach to landscape is not representation via a personally developed technique;but, rather he utilizes elements of historical, abstract representation such as woodblock prints and complicates these formally – primarily though the use of collage.While in the past Takezaki’s landscapes were informed by an environment marked by human intervention, he presently lives in the lush natural landscape of the island of Shodojima; this environment prompted a routine practice of drawing which in turn defined his more recent paintings. Not simply representations of the natural landscape, Takezaki’s new work capture the climate, atmosphere and artifice of the site. When presented in the context of an exhibition, Takezaki’s in stretched canvas works are installed folded over a wooden hanging bar thus eventuating their sculptural quality.