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 is represented by CAI since 2022.