Makiko Kudo was born in 1978 in Aomori, Japan. She graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Joshibi University of Art and Design in 2002, and currently lives and works in Kanagawa, Japan.
From moments when a familiar walking path “suddenly appears to shine” to rivers and places near water, the scent of plants, the breeze, the sound of insect wings, animals, and dreams at night.―Kudo embraces things within daily life that are normally overlooked applying her unique sensitivity to depict dreamlike worlds that are reconstructions of both scenes within the mind and reality, where light, sights, and landscapes she has actually seen coalesce with people and emotions. Kudo says she was deeply impressed by the natural environment where she spent her childhood as a sickly and lonely child, as well as animals, novels, manga, and anime (especially those by Hayao Miyazaki). The Post-Impressionist works of Matisse, Bonnard, and Munch have also served as inspirations. She states, “Ultimately, you could say that I am depicting light.”
Her major solo exhibitions include “Like When We See a Flower Bloom and Realise It Was There All Along” (Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa, Japan, 2022), “Color of the Shadows” (Tomio Koyama Gallery Tennoz, Tokyo, Japan, 2022), “Reborn as Air” (Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2020), Wilkinson Gallery(London, 2015, 2012), Marc Foxx Gallery(LA, 2011)、Andersen’s Contemporary(Copenhagen, 2010).
Her major group exhibitions include “The Way of Painting” (Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2014), “The New International 2014” (Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2014), “Towada Art Center 5th Anniversary Exhibition: flowers” (Towada Art Center, Aomori, 2013), “Body Language” (Saatchi Gallery, London, 2013), “Pathos and Small Narratives” (Gana Art Center, Seoul, 2011), “Pretty Baby” (Modern Art Museum, Modern Art museum, Fort Worth, TX, 2007), “MATRIX213: Some forgotten place” (Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA).
Kudo’s paintings have been acquired by Hood Museum of Art, Hanover (USA), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (USA), UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (USA), Ulster Museum, National Museums Northern Ireland, Belfast (UK).
Her monograph “Turning” was published in 2012 from Tomio Koyama Gallery.
Solo Exhibitions
2024 | “Makiko Kudo Collection – At the Bottom of an Aquarium” G foundation collection Tokyo, Japan |
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2022 | “Color of the Shadows” Tomio Koyama Gallery Tennoz, Tokyo, Japan “Like When We See a Flower Bloom and Realise It Was There All Along” Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa, Japan |
2020 | “Reborn as Air” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan PHILLIPS TOKYO, Japan |
2016 | Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan |
2015 | Wilkinson Gallery, London, UK |
2013 | 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan |
2012 | Wilkinson Gallery, London, UK |
2011 | Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles, USA Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan |
2010 | Andersen's Contemporary, Copenhagen, Denmark |
2007 | Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “TOMODACHI” Takahashi Collection, Tokyo, Japan |
2006 | Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles, USA |
2005 | Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan |
2003 | Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan |
Group Exhibitions
2025 | “Made in AOMORI-Crossing of Nature and History” OMOTESANDO CROSSING PARK, Tokyo, Japan |
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2024 | “AYA's friends' ALTERNATIVE FUTURE” Hidari Zingaro, Tokyo, Japan “MIND SCAPES” GANA ART CENTER, Seoul, Korea “How Did You Come into the World?” Hirosaki Museum Contemporary Art, Aomori, Japan “A Personal View of Japanese Contemporary Art: Takahashi Ryutaro Collection” Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan “Opening Exhibition” UESHIMA MUSEUM, Tokyo, Japan “Revealed – 3 Private Collection” Yokohama Civic Gallery Azamino, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan |
2023 | “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” TALION GALLERY, Tokyo “MEMORIES 01 selected by Yoshiaki Inoue” CADAN Yurakucho, Tokyo, Japan “DMZ Exhibition: Checkpoint” DMZ Border area in Paju and Yeonchoen, Korea “UESHIMA COLLECTION” PHILLIPS, Tokyo, Japan “ceremony: Miya Ando, Kengo Kito, Makiko Kudo, Vik Muniz” Maebashi Galleria, Gallery 2, Gunma, Japan |
2022 | “Jinan International Biennale” Shandong Art Museum, Jinan, Shandong, China “Under Current Satellite Exhibition” N&A Art SITE, Tokyo, Japan “Under Current” Powerlong Museum, Shanghai, China “Unnatural Nature: Post-Pop Landscapes” Acquavella Galleries, Palm Beach, USA / New York, USA |
2021 | “萬華鏡 KALEIDOSCOPE” YIRI ARTS, Taipei, Taiwan “FLOWERS & BIRDS” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “CADAN x ISETAN ART GALLERY Figuration” Isetan Shinjuku Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan |
2019 | “Can You Dream It? (Yes I Can.)” Kristen Lorello, New York, USA |
2018 | “Hypnagogia” Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, UK |
2017 | “The Riddle of Art: Takahashi Collection Resonance or Repellence?” Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan “MAKIKO KUDO & HIROSHI SUGITO” Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles, USA “ICONOCLASTS: ART OUT OF THE MAINSTREAM” Saatchi Gallery, London, UK “Group Exhibition” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan |
2015 | “TIGER TIGER” Salon 94 Bowery, New York, USA “Yuka Kashihara, Hideaki Kawashima, Makiko Kudo, Toru Kuwakubo, Masahiko Kuwahara, Atsushi Fukui” 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan |
2014 | “Group exhibition by Tomio Koyama Gallery” TOLOT/heuristic SHINONOME, Tokyo, Japan “The Way of Painting” Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “Bishojo no Bijyutsushi'” Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori, Japan [traveled to Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan, 2014; Shimane Arts Center, Shimane, Japan, 2014-15] “The New International 2014” Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia “Queensize -Female Artists from the Olbricht Collection” ME COLLECTORS ROOM BERLIN, Berlin, Germany |
2013 | “Towada Art Center 5th Anniversary Exhibition: flowers” Towada Art Center, around Central Shopping etc, Aomori, Japan “Body Language” Saatchi Gallery, London, UK |
2012 | “September” MISAKO & ROSEN, Tokyo, Japan |
2011 | “The Most Requested Top 30/ 10 Years of Takahashi Collection“ TABLOID GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan “Reflections in collaboration with Tomio Koyama Gallery” ford PROJECT, New York, USA “Pathos and Small Narratives” Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea |
2010 | “Paintings by Four Artists” Tomio Koyama Gallery Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan |
2009 | “Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art” Curated by Midori Matsui, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan [traveled to Japanisches Kulturinstitut, Cologne, Germany, 2009; The Japan Foundation, Tronto, Canada, 2010; Galeri'a Arnold Belkin, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, Mexico, 2011] |
2008 | “Four of a Kind” GALLERY SIDE 2, Tokyo, Japan “neoteny japan: Contemporary Artists after 1990s from Takahashi Collection” KIRISHIMA OPEN-AIR MUSEUM, Kagoshima, Japan [traveled to Sapporo Art Museum, Hokkaido, Japan, 2008-09; The Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Niigata, Japan, 2009; Akita Museum of Modern Art, Akita, Japan 2009; Yonago City Museum of Art, Tottori, Japan, 2009-2010; The Museum of Art EHIME, Ehime, Japan, 2010] |
2007 | “Pretty Baby” Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, USA |
2006 | “Heroines” The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, USA “Art and Object” Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori, Japan |
2005 | “VOCA” The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, Japan “POST MODERN” GREENE NAFTALI, New York, USA “Japan Pop” Helsinki City Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland |
2004 | Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles, USA “Tokyo Girls Bravo 3” Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, USA “Time of My Life: Art with Youthful Sprit” Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “Some Forgotten Place / MATRIX 213” UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, USA |
2003 | “Opening Exhibition” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “Hope: Do Hope For The Future” Laforet Museum Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan |
2002 | “Fragile Figures” Palette Club, Tokyo, Japan “Tokyo Girls Bravo 2” NADiff, Tokyo, Japan |
Public Collections
Flowerman Collection, Hiroshima, Japan
Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, USA
Japan Foundation, Tokyo, Japan
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, USA
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA
OKETA COLLECTION, Tokyo, Japan
Ryutaro Takahashi Collection, Tokyo, Japan
Saatchi Collection, London, UK
Taguchi Art Collection, Tokyo, Japan
UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, USA
Ulster Museum, National Museums Northern Ireland, Belfast, UK
Books
【Books】
・ Turning, Tokyo: Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2012.
Aya Takano, “Her Pictures and Words Are Not Sullied by Anything,” p. 66 Noriko Miyamura interview with Makiko Kudo, “I always paint the things I see in my head in my pictures.,” pp. 70–72.
Barry Schwabsky, “The Sum Total of Happiness,” pp. 139–41.
Midori Matsui, “The Dissolution of Color Field and Reconstruction of the World: Makiko Kudo’s Evolving Picture Plane,” pp. 144–46.
【Solo Exhibition Catalogues】
・ Like When We See a Flower and Realise It Was There All Along, The Hiratsuka Museum of Art, 2022.
【Group Exhibition Catalogues】
・artbook THE D.A.P. CATALOGUE Spring 2021, New York: Art Publishers, Inc., 2021.
・100X HANDPICKED, London: Saatchi Gallery and Christie’s, June 2018, p. 38, 39–41.
・“Art Basel Hong Kong,” Art Collectors in Asia, Asia edition vol. 11, Tokyo: Seikatsu no Tomo Co., 2018.
・ICONOCLASTS: Art Out of the Mainstream, London: Saatchi Gallery, 2017, pp. 32–43.
・Pretty Baby, Fort Worth: The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 2017.
・QUEEN SIZE. Female Artists from the Olbricht Collection, Berlin: me Collectors Room Berlin, 2015, pp. 40–41.
・Body Language: Exhibition Guide, leaflet, London: Saatchi Gallery, November 2013.
・The New International, leaflet, Moscow: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, August 2014.
・The Way of Painting, Tokyo: Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 2014, pp. 64–67, 167.
・ Body Language, London: Saatchi Gallery, 2013, p. 48, 49–57.
・ Kenjiro Hosaka, “Pathos and Weakness of Japanese Painting after 1984,” in Pathos and Small Narratives: Japanese Contemporary Art, Seoul: Gana Art Center, 2011, pp. 20–25 (illustrations), 79–86.
・ Makiko Kudo, press release, Copenhagen: Andersen’s Contemporary, 2010.
・ Margrit Brehm, “Japan Calling,” in Japan Pop, Helsinki: Helsinki City Art Museum, Tennis Palace, September 2009, p. 6 (illustration), 29–35.
・ Matrix/Berkeley: A Changing Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Berkeley: The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, December 2009, p. 461.
・ Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art, Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 2009, pp. 5–27, 62–65.
・ Daiwa Radiator Factory Viewing Room vol. 03, Hiroshima: Daiwa Radiator Factory, 2007, pp. 6, 9, 13.
・ The Metropolitan Opera 2006–07 Season, leaflet, New York: The Metropolitan Opera, 2006, p. 6.
・ “Makiko Kudo, Frieze Art Fair Yearbook 2006–7,” Frieze Art Fair, October 12–15, 2006.
・ Motoaki Hori, “The Eternally Young – Artists’ Youth, or Art of the Young,” in Time of My Life: Art with Youthful Spirit, booklet, Tokyo: Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 2004, pp. 8–10.
・ VOCA 2005, Tokyo: The Ueno Royal Museum, 2005, pp. 32–33, 112.
・ Brian Calvin, Sophie von Hellermann, Makiko Kudo, Philippe Perrot, Mamoru Sagawa, publicity mailing, Los Angeles: Marc Foxx Gallery, 2004.
・ MATRIX 213: Some Forgotten Place, booklet, Berkeley: UC Berkeley Art Museum, 2004, pp. 6, 3–17, 18.
【Miscellaneous Published Writings】
・ Makiko Kudo, “From Empire of Nagai to Nagai-land (Tentative),” in Tomoko Nagai, Thousands of Finches, Tomoko Nagai / Floating Mountain, 2017, p. 67.