MAKIKO KUDO

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
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.