In 2008, for the first time I went to New York to sell my work.

At that time, there was no iPhone and didn't know where to find galleries, but I decided to go to New York.

I decided to go anyway, because the demand for paintings in Japan had dropped considerably due to the Lehman Shock, and the street sales I was doing at the time and the exhibitions and sales at rental galleries were not doing well.

I had heard that New York was the home of painting, so I decided to check out every place I could find, and I brought a canvas with about a size 10 painting on it, as well as smaller works.

At that time, the situation of galleries in New York was not as clear as it is today through the Internet and other media.

I read in the guide book that the center of the art area was shifting from Chelsea to the Lower East Side, where the Jews first settled in New York, but I had no idea what that meant.

I didn't have much money then than I do now, so I decided to stay at a cheap inn called the Japanese Guest House.

It was 30 dollars a night. After that, I would often use this inn every time I went to New York.

When I landed at John F. Kennedy Airport, I took a shared bus with instructions from the inn.

I took the bus because it was an hour far from Manhattan and I didn't have the money to take a cab.

I don't remember the details of the bus anymore, but there were only colored people on it.

When we arrived at the inn, the driver told us to get off the bus and go here. But there was no sign of the inn.

I panicked, but I got off and looked carefully at the sign and saw the name of the inn in small letters.

To be continued

In this article, I will write about the art industry in the wake of the corona disaster.

Restaurants were particularly damaged by the new coronavirus.

So how was the art industry undergo?

Before the emerge of coronavirus, it was common to visit museums and galleries to view artworks.

However, this situation has now changed.

The pandemic has forced museums and galleries to close their doors.

As a result, artists have lost the opportunity to show and sell their works, and have been put in a difficult situation.

People are now less likely to visit the sites and see the works.

In response to this, the art industry is trying to regain its footing online.

Nowadays, you can freely view artworks online without going out.

And there are some benefits exclusive online, like interviews and discussions of those professionals.

Takuma Tanaka has been presenting and selling his works online for the past three years.

The advantage of online is that you can see the work from a distance without having to visit the studio.

On the other hand, there is a weak point that the texture and size of the work cannot be conveyed.

However, the use of images and video is beginning to make up for this shortcoming as much as possible.

At the Takuma Tanaka Studio, we have taken measures to prevent corona infection, so you can feel at ease when you visit the studio.

If you would like to visit us, please feel free to do so.

That's it for this time. Thank you very much for your time.

Last year, I created a lot of works. However, this year I will be producing fewer and better, condensed works. The number of works will be reduced, so the price will be a little higher, but the workes will be more powerful than ever before.

Originally, I mainly painted with oil. This material takes time to dry. Sometimes I paint on the undried painting but those are the exceptions. Basically, I add other colors after the paint has dried.

Recently, I started painting a series "The Sayings" that is inspired by the sayings and poems of old Japan and China. I started the series with five paintings at the same time, and only one of them turned out well, so I published that one in my online store. The other four are unpublished and I have no plans to sell them.

Because of these process of stricket selection, the works are intended to be more sophisticated. And since I use paints and other materials that cost about 4,000 yen each for a thumb-sized tube, the price of the finished work goes up.

I once considered that it would be better to close the studio and paint calm at home if I use oil painting, just because of the economic aspect. However, the studio is large enough to be able to see my work from a distance. There is also the fact that I have been supported by the people who I met here. If I sell through an art dealer, my share of the profits will be greatly reduced. For these reason, I will continue to work hard in the studio.

In my new series, "The Sayings" I am creating works based on the words of great masters from various countries in the past like Japan and China.

These words makes me feel the great and eternal flow of universal history.

This may be felt differently by different people, but I try to abstract it in my own way so that it sticks deeply in the minds of many people.

In the future, I will select and release only such well-made works, and I hope that it please my cliente.

Takuma Tanaka has started a new series full of love.
Even in this terrible pandemic situation, we never lose the hope.

A interview about Takuma’s vision is now published on Yahoo! Finance.

Please click here to read

Takuma's work is now on exhibition in Aoyama, central Tokyo. If you are interested in please visit and see it!
This big work is now under dealing with American collector who recently opened a museum in Australia

How to think that we are less than moss

I happened to watch a news program and saw the snowfall information on my cell phone.

The world is a mess, and everyone is full of complaints. After all, there are risks like hyperinflation. It's no laughing matter for the wealthy. People who don't have money are also not funny. It is society that supports people, but society is also affected by the corona, global climate change, changes in the universe, changes in the sun's activity, and so on.

Humans happen to be living on the surface of this planet like moss in an interglacial period. We may look like we own the planet, but in the eyes of the whole world, we are nothing more than a thickened moss. Furthermore, we are one of the 7 billion or so people in the world, and we are no better than moss.

If you look at it that way, you don't have to be overly happy or sad about the human world, yourself, or the relationships around you.

This way of thinking is a core concept for me. It leads to the story of human sushi, which is also about looking at people from a bird's eye view and reflecting on the brutality of their actions. Also, the Cake Ship series is about a cake and a human being, which at first glance is difficult to connect, but when you look at the elements of the composition, the chemical formula of the carbohydrate cake is (CH2O)n, which is close to that of a human being, which is made up of H2O (human) and C (carbon). In fact, they have a lot in common.

In addition, the chromosomes of women and men are almost the same, and Mona Lisa depicted the faces of men and women on the same screen, and Picasso made it easier to understand.

Furthermore, there is a theory that humans and other living things have almost 99% of their DNA in common, and the idea of trees growing out of our heads was born out of the awareness that if hair can grow, then grass and even trees can grow out of our heads.

Although they are said to be different at first glance, the world is made up of a core of similarities, so if you take this into consideration, the core of my series of works is a reminder to not get too caught up in the details.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The special sale for December is now started. Please check if .

★Click here to the store

We have special sale every month.

The works we sell there has much affordable price than usual and there are some works experimental.

Art saved me during the most difficult time of my life. And now, with the support of many fans, I am able to make a living as a painter.

Now it is my turn to help those who have lost hope.

I'm thinking of calling it the Takuma Car Project, where I'll be working with the people who have been suffering from the coronavirus pandemic to make painted cars to sell as a charity project.

First of all, I'm going to auction off my paint car from December 25 to January 10. Since the awareness of painted cars is low in Japan, it will also serve as an advertisement. At the same time, we are asking for people who want to paint on the cars or who have lost their jobs.

In the second half of January, myself and some unemployed people will paint small paintings on the cars of those who want to be painted. Our team will gradually improve their skills, and when we get used to it, we will paint a whole car to make a painted car.

Last time, we talked about how "artistry" is hard to understand. That's when I came up with the idea of a "Takuma Medal". If we respond to something easy to understand, wouldn't a medal be easier to understand and respond to? I wanted to do such a social experiment.

The aim of the Takuma medal is to see if the price will rise. Also, is it easy to understand for ordinary people? I wanted to capture the complexity of art, which is why it is so hard to understand.

The Takuma Medal is not a currency. But I'm looking forward to seeing if it will be like Bitcoin.

Money has been in the hands of the state for a long time, but before that, gold and silver were in the hands of the state. However, it wasn't necessarily that way forever, as there was a time before that when it was traded by weight in gold and silver. Bitcoin is widespread, regardless of the country, and there is no state behind it.

The Takuma Medal is a medal issued by Takuma Tanaka. They are given value as money through auctions and second-hand sales and purchases. We think this is interesting. Please stay tuned for this game.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

This is Takuma Tanaka's Art Samurai Training Series.

When I was staying at a guesthouse in New York and going back and forth between Japan and New York, I met a rather cocky student named M. from Kyoto University. He told me that I was lacking in the logic and basic ideas of art.

Sure, I had learned how to draw, but I didn't have any knowledge of the logic of art or other fields of art. For example, architecture, photography and things that went beyond those, like gardens.

So I enrolled in Yotsuya Art Studium, an experimental art school in Yotsuya that was funded by Kinki University and was established at the time. It was an experimental school, famous for its cutting-edge instructors and experimental approach.

The chief director of the school was Kenjiro Okazaki, and I took his seminar and some classes. When I told Mr. Okazaki that I studied the law in Waseda University and studing for the bar exam, he asked me if I had learned basic law. In this way, we explored the basics, which is one of the characteristics of this school, and there were graduates from overseas art universities and foreign students who studied at japanese Art University.

The first fieldwork was to dismantle Rikugien. We all went to a garden called Rikugien in Tokyo and were given five pieces of paper. The assignment was to take apart Rikugien and show the whole picture. I was puzzled by this. To be continued.

An order-made work is now under progress. This work based on a famous painting of Shigeru Aoki.

Last time, I wrote about Mr. Kanazawa, who first taught me how to draw art. I learned some basic techniques from Mr. Kanazawa, while also learning on my own. At the time I did not have money to buy art books, so I borrowed a large number of art books from the prefectural library in Kuki to study them. If any of those art books had paints in them, they were probably the ones I borrowed.

To learn art, you need to master the pattern of the painter. This pattern is different for each artist. First of all, you have to copy the pattern in order to master it. We try to reproduce as faithfully as possible. The shape, the color, the touch and the surface of the painting.

After that, as I mastered various patterns, I was able to improve them. And eventually, you will be able to break away from the molds and create your own worldview.

It was around this time that I was looking for a way to create a mold. At the time, I came across a book titled "The Art School for Thieves" by Yutaka Sasaki in the Kuki library, and I saw it. When I read the book, it described the various artists who had recently been influencing the work of the landlord.

Inspired by this, I decided to go to Yokohama Station to learn from Yutaka Sasaki, who was teaching at the station building. He was a graduate of the oil painting department of the University of the Arts and worked as an assistant at the Tokyo University of the Arts, but he left there because it was too formal and conservative and went on to become a professor of art at Meisei University, which had a more liberal school culture. To be continued.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Today I would like to write about how Takuma Tanaka has learned the techniques of art.

My first encounter with painting and art originally began as a form of rehabilitation after I became mentally exhausted. After that, I became interested in art, and I learned how to paint from Mr. Hideaki Kanazawa at Yuzawaya, an art supply store with several locations in the Kanto area.

He was an accomplished artist who had become a member of the Nika-kai at a young age without using any money or connections at all. At that time, he was one of the junior members of the Nika-kai, a title he held at that time, a friend of the society.

I remember the first time I met Mr. Kanazawa, when I showed him a drawing, he said, "You draw like a maestro", which I remember. In the beginning, I learned the basics of drawing, how to draw an abstract painting, and how to create colors.

I went there for over two years.

After six months of studying painting, I decided to participate in the Saitama Prefectural Exhibition, which was to be held in Saitama Prefecture Museum. Mr. Kanazawa told me at the time that it was reckless and impossible because the exhibition is for someone who had studied painting for 10 years .

However, I took up the challenge of creating a painting of size 50, which was a big challenge for me at the time. As a result, it was selected and hung in the Prefectural Museum of Art.

To be continued.