Two Exiles

"Two Exiles" carries an emotional charge unusual in Tajima's generally formalist practice, invoking displacement, loss, and the condition of existing outside one's proper place. The two figures — implied rather than depicted — may be rendered as paired forms separated by a compositional gulf, or as similar marks placed at the edges of a composition that excludes rather than centers them. The work connects the postwar experience of displacement and cultural dislocation to Tajima's abstract visual language.