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It’s a day in late Fall, 2025 and I am on the top floor of Mira Godard Gallery in Toronto where I am surrounded by Takao Tanabe’s paintings. I sit or stand or walk about studying them. Lying on a large coffee table are portfolios of Tanabe’s works on paper. These are the works, along with a few others still to come, that will constitute Tanabe’s exhibition in the Gallery in May, 2026 to celebrate his 100-year birthday. I am to write an essay for the show’s catalogue. I’ve been in a like situation with Tak’s work before, and again here, as before, I encounter familiar works, but equally discover new ones that surprise me and that I find myself revelling in.