谷川将樹le silence de l'espoir (2021)

Entitled in French as “le silence de l’espoir” (The Silence of Hope), the scene captured by Tanikawa is a head of a white tiger bowed down, the backdrop the darkest blue of midnight, a silence hanging over the animal as it contemplates its next move. Who or what is the tiger waiting for with bated breath, and perhaps more intriguingly, what lies beyond the captured space itself? For Tanikawa, animals are often personified into symbolic extensions of the artist, and one cannot help but wonder what Tanikawa himself is waiting for. The tiger appears calm, quiet, serene, but Tanikawa excels in also capturing movement through still objects simply by his ability to move his brush in animated touches, perhaps most evident within the fluidity of the black stripes that line the tiger’s body. Using the traditional materials of Japanese Nihonga painting such as seashell powder for the whites, charcoal ink for his blacks, and lapis for the richly dark blues, the space between things is captured in moments like these, and the metaphoric landscapes of the mind are what Tanikawa grasps so well through his beautifully enigmatic wildlife muses. In the silence of anticipation, the morning light of hope awaits.