Maki Ohkojima is a Japanese artist that marches to her own drumbeat. Maki is different. Different in a really good and fun way. Maki does not believe that art should be hindered by frames or borders. Her art is vast and it breaks free of borders and spreads in boundless ways on walls in encompassing glory to form grand murals. Her images are freeing, mystic, natural, mythical, deep and very fun. Maki is the type of artist that follows her consciousness to places that many cannot reach. The good thing is that she does this in a very inviting way. Her paintings smile at you and remind you that freedom is just a state of mind, and so is happiness. Maki uses metaphors to tell her stories in ways that you never forget them. Style.No.Chaser loves this attitude and we will forever be huge fans of Maki’s.
See the interview below …
“When I shut my eyes to sleep as a child, I often felt the beauty and frightfulness …”
Please tell us a little about yourself – your childhood, siblings, where you grew up, what you liked as a child, strange thoughts as a child/now, unique attributes, where you live now, etc.?
One of my two grandfathers was a dairy farmer. My other grandfather was a cameraman who documented The Vietnam War. I grew up in the countryside of Tokyo where mother and father provided me with lots of love. They also introduced me to philosophy. I was a child that loved plants and nature from a really early age. Since childhood, I couldn’t stop expressing my thoughts through paintings. Painting puts me in a trance. It is a great high without the use of alcohol or drugs. I have one younger brother.
What does your art mean to you?
Art is, for me, like a device that can show spectators various views or more angles of a way of thinking. I want to present my spectators a series of pictures each having stories and as a whole expressing a bigger world. Each of the stories connect with complex circuits.
