The main focus of my work is on colour. In my paintings, I transform
my personal memories of a landscape into unusual compositions
of colours. I am melting together of rhythm and spatial
tension. The colours and shapes that I choose represent my
own feelings and at the same time, they are an expression of the
passing of time, of the experience of a unique moment in nature
and of the changes in everyday life. My special passion is the quiet,
almost musical modification within the composition of colours.

Jerry Zeniuk

The paintings of Mamiko Takayanagi are abstract, but somehow, one feels there is a story in the painting and something real to see.  They are in fact  abstract color forms that are organized chromatically to give a sense of harmony creating an image that makes one forget the formalist organization.  The motivation or vision of the paintings is the transcendent quality that makes the work magical.  A good painter doesn't let you see all the work, instead let's the work lead the viewer to the vision.  The paintings observe all the classic rules of painting that have existed for centuries.  They are flat and spatial.  One color is dependent on the other colors.  There is internal proportion, both compositionally and chromatically.  They provide the viewer with the visual vocabulary to understand the work.  

This does not explain why the paintings of Takayanagi are original.  I still believe originality is one measure for judging works of art.  I think there are of course many elements that give her work its special quality.  Her color sense is unique and combined with the flat application of paint and the feeling of space achieves a specific element of time.  Normally one doesn't speak of time in color painting.  It is the attention to the surface of the painting in contrast to the image of the finished painting that creates a tension that makes time relevant to looking at the work.  The paintings are slow and fast at the same time.  This makes me accept the painting.  And this makes the painting present.  One can't ask for more.  

Daniel Neugebauer, Kunsthalle Bielefeld (German)