NORMAN TAKEUCHI

Back in the 1960s, Takeuchi was like many North American artists, his paintings reflecting the predominating movements of the day, including pop art and abstract expressionism. In later years, he started reading about the internment of Japanese Canadians, including his own family, during the Second World War. “The more I learned, the more upset I became about that period and what my parents went through.” Canadian-born Takeuchi, while just a child, was also interned but did not really understand what was happening at the time. His first paintings about the Japanese-Canadian experience were “angry,” he says. The paintings were also a form of therapy. “It’s a way of getting things off my back and accepting who I am.” Those angry paintings have evolved. Now they are more about harmony between the artist’s Japanese ancestry and his contemporary Canadian reality. Japanese iconography and abstract shapes are juxtaposed with Canadian scenes of the prairies, a Nova Scotia lighthouse, or other landmarks. Retired public servant and broadcaster Stephen Boissonneault owns three of Takeuchi’s paintings. “All of Norman’s work has a high level of sophistication, precision, and subtlety in the details, which you learn to discover and appreciate each time you focus on the painting.” Ottawa art historian Maureen Korp says Takeuchi’s multimedia work A Measured Act, about the Japanese-Canadian internment, is “as important a statement of truth” as Picasso's anti-war painting Guernica. A Measured Act sits at the Canadian War Museum. A tapestry version of Guernica is at the United Nations.