Dakutopia Print

With interests in Buddhism philosophy and religious symbolism, Taki KITADA engages herself in visualizing mythology in the contemporary context. Her work is mainly composed of urban photography, digital drawing, and acrylic painting. As an important part of practice, she often walks around cities and takes random snapshots. After adding layers of edits on the photographs, she reorganizes these images with acrylic painting and intricate linear drawing. The work mainly shows mythological characters and stories hovering around industrial landscape in vivid color stream. Using both digital software and traditional painting materials, she harmonizes various visual languages and conceptual elements, such as spiritual and materialistic. Through reconstructing actual images of cityscape with her interpretation, Taki KITADA aims to transform mundane reality to a paradise scenery. In such a hybrid and chaotic imagery, her preoccupation is illustrating Buddhism philosophy, especially about the concept of paradise, on her artwork. While heaven in religious context is often regarded as outside/after world from our real world, Buddhism philosophy has a unique definition about it: paradise for human being is never separated from our real society. The land of the earth is the only and main field that we can nourish own paradise in, by relentless effort and hope. Along with this concept, her painting practice is directed to find beauty in a concrete jungle and garnish it with imagination, to suggest potential utopia in the contemporary world.