Tanaka Raoh: Golden Dragon
Raou Tanaka — Artist page
Biography, available works and enquiries
Tanaka Raoh, Golden Dragon — A Flash of Gold Across a Horizontal Panel
Acrylic on panel / 600×200 mm
For Tanaka Raoh, the dragon is no passing motif. Although the artist has produced numerous dragon works in connection with the Year of the Dragon, his sustained engagement with the subject runs deeper than the calendar cycle.
After becoming a world champion in caricature and being inducted into its hall of fame, Tanaka shed the armor of that career and began his path as a painter by turning inward. His choice of animals as subject matter stems from an attraction to the purity of their existence and the vitality of their movement. A consistent thread runs through his practice: in the gaze of each depicted animal, and in the negative space surrounding it, the viewer is invited to sense the residue of breath and motion.
Golden Dragon is painted on a 600×200 mm horizontal panel. This elongated format — departing from conventional proportions — generates a lateral flow of the eye, imparting a sense of duration as the dragon traverses the picture plane. The chromatic density built up through layers of acrylic and the velocity inscribed by the brushstroke exist in tension with each other; it is precisely at that point of resistance that the core of Tanaka’s work resides.
What a viewer feels when encountering this dragon belongs entirely to the viewer from the moment the artist’s hand withdraws. If the work stirs something in those who project themselves onto it, that response is, for this artist, the fullest realization of his intent.
Available through Gallery Seek. Enquiries are welcome.
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