【Introduction】

Makoto Saito achieved success as a graphic designer before he first exhibited his paintings in 2008. In an individual exhibition at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa,“Makoto Saito: SCENE [0]” he showed paintings that accurately reconstructed images appropriated from films but were executed with heavy layers of paint that disguised the fact that they were created with the help of a computer. There are as many different ways of making paintings as there are people, and Saito applied many of these diverse methods as part of his unique approach. He let a third person (the computer) intervene between him and the paintings, creating a “sense of detachment and distance” in pictures of ordinary contemporary people inserted into movie scenes.
In an interview after the exhibition, he remarked, “Design has a purpose, how to convey what the client wants to convey in the most appealing way. Art is all about what you yourself want to say” (“Yasushi Akimoto – Art Recommendations, Guest No. 4, Makoto Saito,” Bijutsu Techo, January 2009). He has also said, “Even if ninety-eight out of a hundred people don’t agree with my expression and my thoughts, well, that means that at least two people love my art.” That is what motivates him to create. He is not concerned with large numbers of people being attracted to his work and in fact would find that frightening. Saito is engaged in an ambitious and challenging artistic venture, and we hope you will enjoy experiencing it.

【Concept】

For this exhibition, Saito has chosen the female body and sex as his subject. Looking at these pictures up close, all we see are accumulations of paint that take the form of the dots used in the printing process. Moving away, we observe the dots coming together to form an image. The nude body is a major theme that has often been depicted in the history of art, but portrayals of the naked human body have sometimes been criticized from an ethical or moralistic point of view. As a result, artists have ingenuously claimed that they choose the theme of the female nude because of its purely formal beauty and have presented the body in art as an idealistic illusion. Saito believes that art should be both beautiful and sexual, that there is no meaning in artistic representations of the female body that are not erotic. In choosing the female body as a motif, he wants to paint it straightforwardly, fully bringing out its erotic appeal and showing how it arouses a desire for life. His images are based on photographs that he took while engaged in sexual intercourse. Through these works, he asks the question, “What is truly beautiful?” in a way that is both challenging and dignified. While protesting a warped view of sex, he is more concerned with criticizing a society that attempts to avoid risks in order to maintain a tepid harmony and the hypocritical people who adroitly conform with such a society.