Dane Taylor’s two works ‘Safe Zone’ and ‘Green Emissions’ let us glimpse a facet of his Japan. Apart of his Papakura Gallery exhibition Harmonic dispersions, the pairing of these two works engenders multiple readings. Taylor retouches found images to produce digital prints that he later renders with gouache. Safe zone’s basis is a typical tourist postcard depicting an idealized garden at the base of Mount Fuji. While Green Emissions uses a clipping of the debris of the Tohoku tsunami. On these images Taylor paints cellular and mutating diamond forms. Both gems are multi-faceted and placed centripetally within the frame. Safe zone’s gem is more densely solidified as it seems to borrow from the permanence of the Mountain it foregrounds. While the green emissions gem is more organic. Recalling the weeks after the atomic blast in Hiroshima, where in the post-apocalyptic wasteland there was a moment when Gen (Barefoot Gen) looked down to see new wheat sprouting in the dustbowl. Despite it still being tainted with radiation that infuses drinking water with invisible death, a sense was evident that no matter how far gone - anything can regenerate. It could be said Taylor’s works reintroduce a narrative threat of nuclear obliteration so often apart of the psychic energy of the Japanese, while offering homage to the resilience of the people.
From left: Safe Zone. Green Emissions.
