2024.6.22

Patterns and Distance
Makoto Ito, Shoko Masunaga, Kota Sasaki, Nao Osada, Yuka Hotta

Makoto Ito
Ito’s formal yet light-hearted and humorous sculptural works created using diverse materials embody the possibilities of contemporary sculpture.
Blue Sky (produced in 2017) is one of the pieces that draw inspiration from distant scenery visible from a certain location and portray it as something touchable within easy reach. The work uses a photographed bird deterrent attached to a remote power cable as a motif. It expresses the scale of distance as it converts the miniature version of the actual scenery into a sculpture.

Shoko Masunaga
With painting as her starting point, Masunaga employs diverse production techniques. Her works, which emphasize their relationships with the surrounding environment and space, possess variable and interchangeable qualities.
Session (produced in 2023) is composed of a combination of several shaped canvases. Their colors, lines, and patterns softly link together, as if the adjacent canvases respond to each other, forging rich relationships.

Kota Sasaki
Using 3DCG, Sasaki creates paintings that intersect two and three dimensions through the depiction of spaces such as an atelier or a gallery.
In Untitled, a striped pattern is drawn on a thickly painted canvas. The pattern (two dimensions) is painted onto a rugged-surfaced support structure (three dimensions), creating visual fluctuations caused by different viewing angles. The method produces an illusion of compressed imagery on the canvas, making viewers conscious of the act of seeing.

Nao Osada
Osada creates works using silkscreen to print the surface elements of a familiar object onto the surface of a material different from that of the original item.
In Surface Preparation (Sandpaper 3M), the images on the front and back of a sandpaper sheet are printed on two identical brass pieces, which can be superimposed on one another. Osada’s works uncover ephemerality in trivial objects discarded in our daily lives and elevate them into something poetic. They inspire humble awareness in viewers, unsettling their sense of reality.

Yuka Hotta
With painting as her starting point, Hotta’s creation is centered around drawings and installations. In her recent works, she has experimented to use diverse media as intermediaries to produce drawings and incorporated printing as a method of expression.
Titled C, the series traces an eyeless exploration depicted using bodily senses. Its free and relaxed strokes rely on animated sensation to render images evocative of breathing.

2023.11.17

Group Show – Yasuko Toyoshima, Ryosuke Ogino, Makoto Ito

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present a group show featuring new and recent works by three artists starting Saturday, December 16, through January 28, 2024.

Yasuko Toyoshima
Born in 1967, Saitama, Japan. Toyoshima received her MFA from Tokyo University of the Arts. By taking a critical look at institutions and systems found in everyday life and in our society, Toyoshima focuses on creating works that shed light on the patterns found in human thought. Recent shows include Origination Method (solo, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2023-24), PUBLIC DEVICE – Symbolism and Permanence of Sculpture (group, The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of The Arts, Tokyo, 2020), Image Narratives: Literature in Japanese Contemporary Art (group, The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2019). Her works have been added to collections at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

Ryosuke Ogino
Born 1970 in Saitama, Japan. Ogino graduated from the School of Political Science and Economy at Meiji University and completed the B-semi Learning System program. Ogino creates paintings using color layers while examining the relationship between color and form. Recent shows include The Constitution of Japan (group, Aoyama | Meguro, Tokyo, 2023), heliotrope (group, SHOUONJI, Tokyo, 2022), plastic language (solo, See Saw gallery＋hibit, Aichi, 2021). His works have been added to collections at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

Makoto Ito
Born 1955 in Aichi, Japan. Ito received his MFA from Musashino Art University. Recent shows include DOMANI: The Art of Tomorrow (group, The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2022-23), heliotrope (group, SHOUONJI, Tokyo, 2022), Omni-Sculptures -The Scene of Emergence- (group, Musashino Art University Museum & Library, 2021). His works have been added to collections at National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art.

2025.4.5 Artist

Makoto Ito – Setouchi Triennale 2025

April 18 – May 25, 2025
Seto Ohashi Bridge Area
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