Ai Makita

Born in Nagano, Makita lives and works in Tokyo and in Tokyo. Education: Tsukuba University, Art and Design, B.F.A ; Tokyo University of the Arts, Art and Education, M.A. In her works, she creates organic images in her paintings using inorganic motifs such as machineries, metals and plastics, exploring the borderline between artificiality and nature and two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality. She held solo and group shows in art fairs and galleries in Manila, Tokyo, New York, and Miami. Major awards include Pola Art Foundation Scholarship, Terrada Art Award (Tokyo), Taro Okamoto Award(Tokyo), POLA Art Foundation(Tokyo), Residency Unlimited(New York), and the Varda Artist in Residency(Sausalito) Her works are included major private and public collections (i.e. Takahashi Collection, Chiba Bank Collections).

Official site

WORKS

Surface≧

Oil Painting on canvas

910 x 1167 mm

2016

500,000 JPY (w/o tax)

To create my abstract work, I photograph machinery parts, mostly that of cars and bikes, reconstruct the image on computer before painting that image on the canvas.
Swell of the ocean, outer space… depending on the perspective, the audience will come up with various impressions.

Locale ： 3F ⑳

Surface≒

Oil Painting on canvas

910 x 1167 mm

2016

500,000 JPY (w/o tax)

Locale ： 3F ㉑

Add layers: Metabolism

Oil Painting on canvas

530 x 530mm

2020

Sold

I take pictures of man-made objects, mainly of metals and plastics, that can be spotted in the urban settings and manipulate those pictures on computer to reconstruct the image. In this work, I pieced together the fragments of a view of Shinjuku, painted the image, and then applied the collage technique on its surface.
What I portrayed was the image of today’ s city that keeps expanding with its continuous developments.