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BIOGRAPHY
Maya Makino aims to capture and preserve the experience of witnessing scenes from the past, resulting from an involuntary awareness of sensations, and appearing momentarily before her eyes. Think of the quietness of the night, the sound of the rain, or the scent of a flower. These fragments trigger childhood memories, followed by an experience in which those memories flash rapidly and volatile through our mind, before they disappear instantly just as the artist becomes aware of these sights and senses.
Arguably one of the most important aspects of Makino’s painterly practice is the intensity of colour. She uses a single dye to achieve a range of indigo blue hues, working on wooden panels primed with a traditional gesso using gofun – also known as shell lime. Doing so, the Japanese artist is able the create subtle textures and reliefs on her surface, before soaking the panel with an intense indigo dye.
The indigo does not sit on top of its surface, it penetrates the support, parallel with how she penetrates the mind in her pursuit of remembering, capturing, and preserving feelings or moments. For Makino, painting is not only a tour de force of a specific medium on a specific surface. She approaches it as a phenomenon emerging from deep within the support, as the colour impels the painting to transcend it’s material aspects
Maya Makino (b. 1980, Kanagawa, Japan) is based in Tokyo, Japan. She achieved her MFA in Painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts in 2009. Makino has nationally exhibited at renowned institutions, such as the The University Art Museum, Tokyo (JP) in 2017; the Fujisawa Art Space, Kanagawa (JP) in 2016; the Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo (JP) in 2015; or the Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo (JP) in 2012. Her works are featured international private collections and national public collections, encompassing the Saiho-Ji Temple, Tokyo (JP); the Collection Isuzu Motors (JP); the collection of St. Regis Osaka (JP), the collection Minakami, Gunma Prefecture (JP); and the collection of the University Art Museum, Tokyo (JP).
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2022, Faded (solo exhibition), CAI Gallery, Viewing Room, BE
2022, Blue (group exhibition), Gallery 57, Arundel, West Sussex, UK
2021, Night Falls (solo exhibition), Galerie Kawakami, Tokyo, JP
2021, The Prize Show (group exhibition), Geidai Art Plaza, Tokyo, JP
2019, Days (solo exhibition), Galerie Kawakami, Tokyo, JP
2017, Halcyon Days (solo exhibition), Galerie Kawakami, Tokyo, JP
2017, TUA Emerging Artists (group exhibition), The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo, JP
2016, Outside the Window (solo exhibition), Rokkatei Fukuzumi, Hokkaido, JP
2016, The View from Here (group exhibition), Fujisawa Art Space, Kanagawa, JP
2016, Cadeau de Noël (group exhibition), Galerie Kawakami, Tokyo, JP
2015, The View I Always Saw (solo exhibition), Galerie Kawakami, Tokyo, JP
2015, In the Garden (solo exhibition), Gallery An, Ibaraki, JP
2015, VOCA – The Vision of Contemporary Art (group exhibition), The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, JP
2014, Collection of the Year (group exhibition), Rokka Library, Hokkaido, JP
2013, Swimming In the Rain (solo exhibition), Galerie Kawakami, Tokyo, JP
2012, 10th Nakamichi Exhibition (group exhibition), Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo, JP
2011, Between Memories and Stories (solo exhibition), Galerie Kawakami, Tokyo, JP
2009, The Bloom (group exhibition), Art Jam Contemporary, Tokyo, JP
2008, Geidai Art Plaza Art Prize (group exhibition), Geidai Art Plaza, Tokyo, JP
COLLECTIONS
The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts, JP
Minakami, Gunma Prefecture, JP
The St. Regis Osaka, JP
Isuzu Motors Limited, JP
Saiho-ji Temple, Tokyo, JP
International private collections
SELECTED WORKS
