The Christopher Cutts Gallery is excited to present Daisuke Takeya’s “Waiting for Spring,” the second in a two-part presentation of the artist’s landscapes. Featuring ten new paintings, the exhibition expands on Takeya’s ongoing exploration of the landscape genre.

“Waiting for Spring” presents serene scenes of Toronto and Ontario, capturing the reserve and elegance of the Canadian winter while looking toward the grace and blooms of spring. The paintings are layered with dual meanings and tonal ironies. Beneath their still surfaces runs an undercurrent of longing, the feeling of waiting on the other side for one’s own spring to arrive. However, winter is not merely endured, it is appreciated as an imperative experience.

The exhibition’s title, “春よ来い。” (Haru Yo, Koi), translates to “Spring, come.” In contrast to the English title, spring is not only awaited, but called for, invoked regardless of its inevitability.

Although born in Japan, Takeya began his artistic career with his move to North America and eventually spent 25 years developing his practice in South Ontario. His recent return to Japan does not resolve into a simple sense of belonging, but instead produces a nuanced sense of distance and connection to both places. Until this move, Takeya’s impasto sky landscape paintings, the “Kara” series, approached the landscape from a distance. In these new compositions, Takeya has become more integrated in the landscape, taking us further into the cities and rural scenes of Ontario. Painted in Hayama and Ishinomaki, but to be exhibited in their origin, Ontario, this series was created in a space between Japan and Canada, between the detached perspective of his Kara paintings and his intimate familiarity with his home of over two decades.

“Waiting for Spring” inhabits a condition of in-between — not yet spring, but no longer winter. To witness the thaw, aware that spring will arrive regardless, takes on a consoling irony, as encouraging as it is disciplined.

We look forward to seeing you at the opening reception on Saturday afternoon! The artist will be in attendance.

“Waiting for Spring” will be up from March 28 – April 11, 2026.

Part one

The Christopher Cutts Gallery is excited to announce our upcoming program, a two-part presentation of work by Daisuke Takeya.

The first part is a special 4-day presentation surveying three decades of Takeya’s landscape paintings, serving as an engaging contextual prelude to his succeeding exhibition “Waiting for Spring,” which will feature ten new landscapes, continuing the evolution of his signature Kara series.

This initial presentation will span 26 years of Daisuke Takeya’s explorations in the landscape genre. Takeya was trained in figurative painting at the New York Academy of Art and began investigating the relationships between portraiture and landscape painting in the 1990s. After finding representation with the Christopher Cutts Gallery in Toronto, Takeya’s first show with the gallery was his “Everybody Loves You” series, diptychs of skylines juxtaposed with portraits. He then developed his distinctive Kara series, largely in reaction to the CCG’s abstract painting programme — the Kara paintings feature large abstract colour field skies meeting diminutive yet detailed landscapes at the bottom of the canvas. The canvases are almost entirely abstract impasto skies, with many paintings over 6 ft tall, while the titular landscapes are only an inch or two in height.

Tracing from his 2000 “Everybody Loves You” series to his 2010 Kara paintings, this survey will also include portraits from his 2020s “No Man’s Land” series, featuring anonymous figures in empty landscapes, and paintings from his 2025 landscape exhibition, “RESIDENTS ⊂ PASSENGERS.”

This survey will only be on view from Saturday, March 21, through Thursday, March 26.

We hope to see you this Saturday, March 21, 2026, from 2 to 6 pm for the opening reception! The artist will be in attendance.

FYI: March 21st is also the gallery’s 40th anniversary! We look forward to celebrating the occasion alongside Takeya’s long-standing career with the gallery.