MAKIKO KUDO
Born in Aomori, Japan in 1978, Kudo graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Joshibi University of Art and Design in 2002. In her early career, her works exhibited the aesthetics of Fauvism, characterized by her fervent, vivid colors and expressive brushwork while capturing lights in her paintings. Since then, there has been a subtle nuance in the way she created. Kudo’s works appeared to be referenced to the post-impressionist era. Influenced by personal childhood memories, comics, and animations, as well as her admiration for modernism, Kudo integrated those introspective images into her paintings. Her works consist of boys and girls with melancholy expressions, flowers as embellishments, and animals that are blended into the scene while exuding a strong sense of existence. Although these elements constitute the canvas in complex fragments, Kudo's introspective view connects them smoothly, and this perspective is not widely known. Kudo belongs to the generation of artists born in the 1960s and 1970s, succeeding the Kansai New Wave and Superflat. During the late 1990s to 2000s, some of these artists, including Kudo, created works that were individualistic yet carried subtle temporal resonance. Critic Midori Matsui termed this “Micropop” to describe this new genre of art movement. Kudo, being a member of these artists, is regarded as one of the representative artists in Japanese contemporary art history. In 2022, she held a major solo exhibition at the Shonan the Hiratsuka Museum of Art, entitled “Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art” which was curated by Midori Matsui. This exhibition toured 44 venues in 30 countries around the world, including Hara Museum ARC (Tokyo), The Japan Cultural Institute in Cologne (Germany), The Japan Foundation, Toronto (Canada), 2010 / Galeri’a Arnold Belkin: Museo Universitario del Chopo, University Museum of Chopo (Mexico), etc. Kudo has participated in numerous domestic and international group exhibitions and art fairs. Her works are held in collections at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art. Los Angeles (US), UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Rim Archive (US), Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (US), Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College (US), Ulster Museum (UK), The Japan Foundation (Tokyo), among others.
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Title: 謎の楽器を手に入れた / I Got a Mysterious Instrument
Year: 2022
Medium: oil on wallpaper
Dimensions: 34.2 x 17.5 cm (13 1/2 x 6 7/8 in.) -
Title: 夜の明かり / Night Lights
Year: 2019
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 227.3 x 181.8 cm (89 1/2 x 71 1/2 in.) -
Title: ウイルス / Virus
Year: 2022
Medium: acrylic on handkerchief
Dimensions: 26 x 27.3 cm (10 1/4 x 10 3/4 in.) -
Title: あかくもえる / Burning Red
Year: 2012
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 181.1 x 227.3 cm (71 1/4 x 89 1/2 in.) -
Title: 熱いアスファルトにねころがるのも好きだったけれど / I Also Liked Lying Down on the Hot Pavement
Year: 2018
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 227.8 x 181.8 cm (89 3/4 x 51 5/8 in.)
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謎の楽器を手に入れた / I Got a Mysterious Instrument
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Year: 2022The work is drawn on roughly cut wallpaper. The support not being canvas lends itself to a dense depiction that makes the viewer doubt if it’s a drawing. For Kudo, drawing signifies something more improvisational than its original meaning as linework; it points to the general act of creating work that is simpler than a tableau. In a past interview, Kudo describes how her practice is an extension of her childhood days when she used to draw pictures on the streets and the back of flyers, and how things have not changed ever since. In this work, a girl stands still while holding a brass instrument shaped like a trombone. As the title “mysterious instrument” suggests, this is likely her first time holding it, therefore she holds it so awkwardly. Her pink clothes and the yellow instrument stand out against the blue and green background. Although this instrument does not seem to make any sound, one can almost hear the comforting sound of the paintbrush running smoothly on the wallpaper from the relaxed appearance of the thinned oil paint.
Medium: oil on wallpaper
Dimensions: 34.2 x 17.5 cm (13 1/2 x 6 7/8 in.)
Acquired from Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2022
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夜の明かり / Night Lights
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Year: 2019Plum blossoms bloom around February, during the harsh cold of winter. They are also known as “Hyakka no Sakigake,” or “the harbinger of a hundred flowers.” They announce spring is around the corner, taking their time to blossom and emanating their aroma. In Makiko Kudo’s monograph, “Reborn as Air,” she reflects on this work and writes that she loved seeing plum blossom trees at night. During this season, the nights are cold, and the piercing air comes forth from the surface of the painting. A pale blue figure walks between the red and white plum blossoms, with a rooster on their head for some inexplicable reason. The red and white plum blossoms slightly warm the winter night’s icy landscape with a subtle pink hue. If plum blossoms are flowers that signify the heralding of early spring, the rooster is the bird that announces the dawn with its crowing. Although the figure’s expression remains tense and stiff, surely entertaining the vague hope that the long winter and dark nights will soon end, it will gradually break into a smile with the arrival of spring.
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 227.3 x 181.8 cm (89 1/2 x 71 1/2 in.)
Acquired from Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2022
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Virus
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Year: 2022Kudo's works gently mingle with the boundary between daily life and painting. In this work, she has chosen a handkerchief which was given by her mother as a support when cleaning her brushes. Although Kudo lives with cats and they often appear in her paintings, in this work, the design of lovely black cats on the handkerchief adds a heartwarming touch. However, the figure depicted is facing straight ahead with eyes opened, and the profile looks somewhat stiff. The title is “Virus”. The dotted black cats with other designs printed on the handkerchief seem to be a metaphor for the invisible threat that is waiting to spread and rage against humans. This work was created in 2022, and at the time of its release, the world was still under the ongoing threat from COVID-19, and fighting against it was a critical issue for humans. Many artists expressed their works in their way as a social commentary or as wishes and prayers. Kudo created a few works of handkerchiefs, including this one, which were exhibited in galleries and museums, often hung on ropes as if they were laundry, swaying lightly in the air.
Medium: acrylic on handkerchief
Dimensions: 26 x 27.3 cm (10 1/4 x 10 3/4 in.)
Acquired from Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2022
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Burning Red
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Year: 2012Compared to Kudo's early works in the 2000s which were pointed out for their vivid colors and influence from Fauve, the works from around 2010s have a somewhat oppressive darkness covering the canvas. If we roughly classify her works by decade, it can be said that her style in the recent 2020s has become brighter and more open. From such a perspective, this work is a good example showing the characteristics of the 2010s. A figure depicted in light blue is lying in mid-air. The brooding look and appearance that the arms and legs seem to be hung by the trees are imbued with a sense of melancholy. Unlike the figure which looks detached from reality, the forest expanding in the background is full of vitality, with the powerfully depicted verticality of the rising conifer. The glimpses of the blue sky through the treetops suggest that it is not an entirely dark forest. Perhaps the reddish light of the setting sun streams in here and there to the lower trunks. Like the scene illuminated with red to the inside of the deep forest, the heart of the light blue figure which appears with a cold look, may be burning quietly.
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 181.1 x 227.3 cm (71 1/4 x 89 1/2 in.)
Acquired from Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2022
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熱いアスファルトにねころがるのも好きだったけれど / I Also liked Lying Down on the Hot Pavement
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Year: 2018This is a typical artwork of Kudo – the entire composition is formed by an intricate depiction of animals, plants, and human beings. In the center of the painting, surrounded by a cluster of large plants, human beings and animals are being depicted in a composition resembling an isosceles triangle. A girl lying with a cat, a boy sleeping next to a lion, a girl lying languidly on a daybed, a leopard, and a girl standing confidently in the back; all created a mysterious space evoking a pyramid-like hierarchy structure rather than traditional depth. The plants with branches and leaves spreading from the invisible area at the bottom part of the work, intentionally create an ambiguity and make the audience wonder whether the plant is in the foreground or in the lower part of the painting. As the title suggests, the grayish blue background which presumably represents asphalt ground, seems to be visible from the sky, creating an illusion of the motifs floating in the air. While the animals and figures occasionally gazed out, it is obvious that the motifs are facing the audience, intensifying the frontal aspect rather than the depth. The sheer presence of the person subtly fleeing on the left shoulder is depicted in the upper left corner of the work, which ingeniously corresponds with the lively standing figure in the middle of the work. The insignificant plants, which were supposedly tiny weeds, are portrayed as huge prickly pear cactus. Such an absurd and bewildering yet intriguing world perhaps belongs to the dream of the lounging figure.
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 227.8 x 181.8 cm (89 3/4 x 51 5/8 in.)
Acquired from Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2022