Takao Tanabe, since his return to his native province in 1980, has produced a remarkable series of paintings that depict the landscape of British Columbia in a manner that is distinctly his own. His profound appreciation for and understanding of the BC coast is revealed in images that are without parallel in Canadian art. Tanabe, more than any other painter working in British Columbia, has produced images that reveal the mystery and wonder of the natural world in a way that is both poetic and magisterial.

In 1985, Tanabe explored the landscape of the Queen Charlotte Islands (now Haida Gwaii) in a series of paintings. The series has an overall title, South Moresby, and the paintings are numbered and dated within the series. This canvas was the 14th painting in the South Moresby series from 1985. Kunghit Island is the southernmost island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago and sits south of Moresby Island.

South Moresby 14/85: Kunghit is, like many of Tanabe’s compelling images of Haida Gwaii, almost ineffable. The islands, viewed from a great distance across a gently moving ocean, emerge from the sea and mist with an almost visionary majesty. Tanabe’s decision to transition from a darker foreground to a brighter middle ground, seen in the horizontal patch of water from which the islands rise, compels the eye to delve into this distance. Just beyond the foremost islands are further islands shrouded in mist. The whole painting is animated by a sense of movement into an unknown distance. Above the gentle swell of the ocean and the almost illusory islands is a luminous, cloud-filled sky. Tanabe has been careful, however, not to define the clouds too closely, knowing that a too tightly delineated sky would detract from the mist-shrouded islands in the centre of the composition.

South Moresby 14/85: Kunghit is an image that shimmers on the surface of the canvas. In this landscape Tanabe forgoes linear pattern, as forms meld into each other, conveying the sense of an environment that is there right now but might change in an instant. The painting suggests that we cannot pin down this ever-changing environment. Rather, we should relish the ocean swell, the illusory islands and the mutable sky. In South Moresby 14/85: Kunghit, Tanabe has brilliantly and subtly captured the ever-transforming natural world.

We thank Ian M. Thom, Senior Curator—Historical at the Vancouver Art Gallery from 1988 to 2018, for contributing the above essay. Thom is the author of several Tanabe publications, including Takao Tanabe: Life & Work, published in 2024.