AYA TAKANO

Painter, illustrator, science fiction essayist, and manga  artist, AYA TAKANO has created a highly personal  universe composed of infinite worlds, each serving as a  means to escape reality and gravity and its constraints, to  achieve a form of transcendence. 

AYA TAKANO’s Happy and joyous days, a permanent  work created for the Palazzo Diedo bookshop, is a  ceiling painting made using the ancient fresco a giornate  technique, taking its inspiration from Venice, the city of  water. Unlike traditional frescoes that usually depict gods,  angels, or dragons observing us from above, TAKANO’s  piece flips the perspective: the viewer gazing upward  finds themselves completely immersed in the Venetian  sea, where a manga-style mermaid floats on the surface  with a Venetian Lion and sea creatures, along with a copy  of the book The Merchant of Venice adrift nearby.