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. 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. By doing so, the Japanese artist is able to 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 color impels the painting to transcend its material aspects.

Maya Makino was born in 1980 in Kanagawa, Japan, and is currently based in Tokyo, Japan. The artist achieved a BFA and MFA in Painting at Tokyo University of the Arts. Notable exhibitions include national and international institutional venues such as Geidai Art Plaza in Tokyo, Japan; Heather Gaudio Fine Art in Connecticut, the United States of America; The Untitled Void in Seoul, South Korea; The University Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan; The Ueno Royal Museum in Tokyo, Japan; and the Fuchu Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan. As a result, her works feature in public collections such as The University Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan; Minakami Collection in Gunma, Japan; TIAD Autograph Collection in Aichi, Japan; Yoshimoto Pole Co., Ltd. in Gunma, Japan; Isuzu Motors Ltd. in Kanagawa, Japan; and Saiho-ji Temple in Tokyo, Japan. Maya Makino joined the CAI Gallery program in 2022.