空” means ‘empty’ in Japanese, pronounced “Kara”
“空” also represents the word ‘sky’ in Japanese, pronounced “Sora”

The Christopher Cutts Gallery is pleased to announce Daisuke Takeya’s upcoming exhibition, premiering nine new iterations of his signature Kara landscapes, depicting sites around the world. The Kara series is characterized by expansive, abstract skies that meet exceptionally detailed horizons only a few inches from the bottom of the canvases.

For the first two decades of the series, the Kara paintings were almost entirely sky — some over 6 ft tall, with the titular landscapes only an inch or two in height. But 2025’s “RESIDENTS ⊂ PASSENGERS” sees the series evolve as Takeya turns the canvases on their sides, boundless skies now sprawling out widthwise as the horizon creeps higher into the compositions. The cityscapes have grown larger in the foreground, still incredibly intricate with Takeya’s masterful rendering of architecture, infrastructure, and nature.

Just as 空 represents two equally relevant words at once, this series explores double meanings and juxtapositions. The Kara paintings are landscapes with minimal land. The skies are empty, but rich in atmosphere and colour. The bold, expressive layers of impasto meet the constrained, detailed, and diminutive settings at their base with tension.

In this new collection of paintings, as the skies are shortened and the landscapes below them expand, it becomes apparent that not only the skies, but even the vividly illustrated urbanscapes and topographies below them are unusually unoccupied. Despite the artist’s experience and education in portraiture, Takeya’s meticulous environments, depicting even individual train cars and streetlights intricately, never include the presence of people.

Both the skies and land remain peculiarly empty.

Join us for the opening reception on March 1, 2025, from 2 – 6 pm.
This exhibition will run from March 1 – March 22, 2025.