Takuma Tanaka｜The Artist Forsaken by God, Chosen Again
Act I: Between Expectation and Alienation (High School – University)
Takuma Tanaka ranked in the top 20 out of 450 students at Urawa High School, one of the most elite schools in Saitama. Everyone expected him to enter the University of Tokyo and walk the path of a bureaucrat. But deep inside, he was plagued by a quiet question:
"Can I really survive in this society?"
He entered Chiba University, only to find a hierarchy dominated by old boys from Tokyo University and a stifling conservatism. Unable to submit to authority, Tanaka clashed with professors and eventually dropped out. After failing the University of Tokyo entrance exam, he claimed he had intended to pursue the bar exam instead—and began to do so in earnest.
Act II: A False Goal and a Real Collapse (Waseda – Withdrawal)
Determined to rise again, he enrolled at Waseda University and began serious preparation for the bar exam in his third year. But the competitive mindset wore him down.
Eventually, his mind broke. He let go of the exam, and life itself.
He withdrew from society completely, becoming a shut-in.
Act III: Revelation and Redemption (Aya Town – Psychiatric Hospital)
IMAGE in mental hosoital
Driven by an unexplainable urge to reconnect with the world, he set out on a journey.
In the forests of Aya, a village in Miyazaki Prefecture, a voice came to him one night:
“Draw the requiem of humankind.”
After returning to Tokyo, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
There, handed a paintbrush during occupational therapy, he felt it:
“This... this will keep me alive.”
Act IV: Resurrection from the Streets and a Single Miracle (Urawa & Ginza – Museum)
Before 2008, Tanaka was selling paintings directly on the streets of Urawa and Ginza—one by one, just to survive.
No galleries, no recognition. Just: draw, sell, survive.
He stood in the rain, in the wind, ignored by passersby, laying out his soul in silence.
Later came a marriage, followed by divorce. A company, followed by bankruptcy.
One day, about to throw away his unsold works, one of them was instead—miraculously—acquired in 2018 by a British museum.
He realized:
“What I believed was worthless... had reached the world.”
Act V: Carving a Path with Bare Hands (New York – Shanghai)
A decade earlier, before the 2008 Lehman Shock, Tanaka had flown to New York alone.
He knocked on the doors of over 100 galleries with his portfolio, eventually signing with Pierogi Gallery.
After returning to Japan, he briefly attended Kenjiro Okazaki’s seminar at Yotsuya Art Studium but withdrew again due to financial hardship.
Then came Shanghai.
He visited more than 80 galleries through cold approaches, eventually connecting—through a phonebook listing—to Parkview Green Gallery, where he held four solo exhibitions.
Act VI: The Pandemic and the Light That Returned (Present)
In Ulster museum
COVID-19 pushed him to the edge once more.
But just as everything seemed lost, one of his works sold for one million yen.
He rose again, flew to Miami, and signed with a gallery there.
Today, his works are exhibited in cities across Asia and the Western world.
Takuma Tanaka’s art is not technique, not education.
It is necessity.
His lines are not composition—they are scars.
His colors are not theory—they are memory.
Wandering the periphery of society again and again,
he never stopped drawing.
His work is not simply art.
It is evidence that his soul endured.
Title: DuBAI our heaven?
Artist: Takuma Tanaka
Year: 2025
Medium: Mixed media on canvas (acrylic, collage, ink)
Dimensions: 22.7 × 15.8 cm (SM size)
Description:
In DuBAI our heaven?, Takuma Tanaka presents a visceral meditation on modern desire, displacement, and dystopia. Through a dynamic mix of collage, graffiti-like text, and expressive brushwork, the artist evokes the fragmented psyche of contemporary urban life.
A photographic cutout of a gleaming skyline—presumably Dubai—anchors the composition, overlaid by two yellow humanoid figures resembling cartoon rabbits. They appear to float in surreal detachment, suggesting innocence, irony, or a manufactured paradise. Around them, urgent handwritten phrases like "What are we doing?", "We are living here!", and "Human Beings!" are scattered like echoes of collective confusion.
The composition is layered with bold reds, blacks, and pinks that bleed into one another, while childlike airplane sketches and figures convey a dreamlike state of transit and existential questioning. The title poses a provocative query: is this hyper-modern, ultra-wealthy city a new heaven—or merely another illusion?
With this small yet powerful canvas, Tanaka challenges viewers to reflect on the mirages of prosperity and the emotional costs of urban utopias.