Sakura Maku

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What is your work about?

I pervade my work with language confusions, the way they happen around me. Conflating the languages and forms I readily hear and use, my art speaks to uncertain identities that surround multilingual existences. I examine language barriers, forms of hybridity, and hard-to-define everyday instances, using comics and zines as narrative starting points. By comics and zines, I mean the kind of book forms that are cheaply put together on-the-fly, often uncensored of individual thought meanderings, and associated with languages and images that connect time and space. The comics and zines I’ve published over the last decade portray young female protagonists. Over time, these explorations have led to investigations of speculative comic zine forms, such as comic paintings or a video-kamishibai-manga-zine-performance, by which I remain fascinated.

 

Artist Statement

I often respond to books and periodicals while I read them. I open and close them, and hold them close to my body for long periods of time. I change positions, from sitting or reclining, to hold them at different angles under light. Sometimes my hand or foot falls asleep and I need to adapt weird body positions to meet the book’s demands of remaining open, it’s pages visible and able to be turned as needed. The prints inside are all double-sided, as if they have no backs and exist collectively sewn together.

My recent work comprises of three separate scenarios that portray young female protagonists. Considering my newer paintings as U-Turns, I turn back to a story I created in the past to explore it further. The scenario follows a young woman walking, as she runs into an old friend and embarks on a small journey. The dialog and story go in and out of different languages as two friends, who speak the same different languages, or siblings do.

At times language barriers and forms of hybridity are hard-to-define everyday instances. I think everyone experiences awkward language forms. For instance, although newspapers gently rub off that smell-good ink on my fingers and make me expand my arms to turn its oversized, delicate, and flimsy pages, the journalistic reports they claim can be more fickle than facts. It’s such a pleasurable form that resembles a museum artifact I can touch all over, but at times fools me. Books that are translated into other languages by someone who is not the author can be communicatively problematic, though the initial endeavor, which can take much time and effort, is to be expansively informative.

I often portray scenarios where young female characters experience language confusions in their everyday existences. I live in a city where I hear many different languages being spoken, written, and sung often simultaneously, everywhere. And since my main mode of moving around is walking, the subway or bus, I’m often pushed-up against many different types of people just to get to work. I’m often mistaken for one who can speak various Asian languages when people are lost in the subway or on the street. The look on a lost traveler’s face, as they realize I look a certain way but am not, is wordless and perpetual. I make the same mistakes. It’s hard to decipher who’s really who in a busy, fastpaced environment with lots of complexities. My parents live in another state and speak better Japanese than English. I speak better English than Japanese, and when we talk on the phone, or send each other birthday greetings, the most productive language being used, that never remains constant, is something like Japanglish.

Foot Anime Book is an experiment with comic-zine forms, as well as kamishibais, video, and performance. A kamishibai is a storytelling technology where a person sits across from an audience and holds up narrative images, like flash cards. The person holding the image reads out loud the descriptions and dialogs that are printed on the back, while the viewer looks and listens to the sound of the holder’s voice. I incorporate a kamishibai-style experience into a real-time video, and create a live performance in front of the projected screen. I utilize the sound of my voice. A comic-zine of the same name compliments the work, and each issue comes with a hand-painted comb. The live performance segment includes a person-sized foot held by an actor, while another actor paints the foot’s toes using a cake decorator. The live actors sing in Japanese, simultaneously in sync with another actor projected on screen. Some of the actors sing in non-native Japanese, and some mispronounce lyrics at different instances. Time and language confusions are explored while interpretations remain up in the air.

In a scenario I made last year, a superhero character, Momoko Rose, is portrayed in a sequence of paintings, through the lens of a feature film and a television studio. As the Rose cousins breathe toxic air into the lungs of children around town, Momoko shoots rice out of her wrists to temporarily deter her extended family. The panels and gutters in the comic paintings are integrated onto the picture plane and create simultaneous perspectival spaces in one image.

I often start out by making a comic or a zine. At the least, all it takes is a pen and some paper. Anyone can make a comic. The comics and zines I’ve published over the last decade, in addition to other works, portray young female protagonists. Over time, these explorations have led to speculative comic-zine forms, such as sequential paintings that examine plural picture planes, and a video-kamishibai-manga-zine-performance. I remain fascinated by taking chances that can influence unanticipated comic-zine forms.

 

CV

EDUCATION

2007 MFA Painting and Printmaking, Yale University, New Haven, CT

2004 BFA Illustration, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

2005 Art Student’s League, New York, NY

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

2014

Brooklyn Brain Frame 2, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Lyra Hill

2013

The Pond, The Mirror, The Kaleidoscope, Visual Arts Gallery, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

Imago Mundi, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice Biennale, Italy, a project by Luciano Benetton, curated by Diego Cortez

Works on Paper, Brooklyn Fireproof, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Sheena Vega

2011

Goodbye Space Shuttle, The Active Space, Brooklyn, NY

2010

NeoIntegrity Comics Edition, Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, New York, NY

2009

Octet: Codes and Contexts in Visual Art, Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey, traveled to Visual Arts Gallery, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

2008

Radar Eyes A Survey of Hallucinogenic Printmaking, Co Prosperity Sphere, Chicago, IL, traveled to ArtCar Museum, Houston, TX

2007

Graduate Thesis Exhibition, Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT

New Mutants, Canada, New York, NY

NeoIntegrity, Derek Eller, New York, NY

Hooray, Proposition, New York, NY

Macronauts, Andres Melas Presents, Athens, Greece

2006

Words and Pictures Show, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Leslie Stein

2005

100 Years of Heimatschutz, Municipal Library, Biel, Switzerland

2004

Screened, Visual Arts Gallery, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

Baby’s Bathwater, Asterisk, Brooklyn, NY

Suburban Sex and Supermen, Westside Gallery, New York, NY, curated by Duane

Bruton

2003

NeoIntegrity Burnt to a Crisp, Asterisk, Brooklyn, NY

American Gothic American Noir, PPOW, New York, NY

AWARDS | HONORS

2007

Barry Cohen Scholarship

2006

Yale School of Art Summer Teaching Fellowship

2004

Rhodes Family Award

Shakespeare & Co. Grant

Meg Wohlberg Award

2003

Gilbert Stone Scholarship

PUBLICATIONS

Print Media

“The Pond, The Mirror, The Kaleidoscope.” The Visual Arts Press, August 2013. (catalogue).

Juxtapoz Magazine. “Event: The Pond, The Mirror, The Kaleidoscope, The School of Visual Arts in NYC Celebrates the Neo-Symbolist.” Issue 151. August 13, 2013.

Grant, Michael. “Upon Reflection.” Visual Arts Journal. Spring 2013.

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. “NeoIntegrity: Comics Edition.” The NeoIntegrity Omnibus. (catalogue). April 2013.

Octet: Selected Works from the School of Visual Arts, New York. August 2009. (catalogue).

Mayerson, Keith. “NeoIntegrity.” August 2007. (catalogue).

Percivall, Gustav. “Sakura Maku.” Yale School of Art 2007 MFA Painting-Printmaking Catalog. May 2007.

Hooray. Published by the Holster. December 2006. (catalogue).

Blogs | Web Publications

“Q&A with Artist Sakura Maku: From Freddy Kreuger to Garfield.” (blog). September 6, 2013.

http://blog.sva.edu/2013/09/qa-with-artist-sakura-maku-from-freddy-kreuger-to-garfield/

Clough, Robert, “Top Fifteen Comic Books of 2011.” (blog). February 13, 2012.

http://highlowcomics.blogspot.com/2012/01/top-fifteen-comic-books-of-2011.html

Pusack, Elizabeth. “Q and A: Sakura Maku.” (blog). September 6, 2012.

Q and A: Sakura Maku

Anderson, Maria. “Preview: Goodbye Space Shuttle @ Curbs and Stoops Active Space.” White

Hot Magazine, July 2011. http://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/shuttle-curbs-stoopsactivespace/2337

English, Austin. “20 Questions with Sakura Maku.” Domino Books. April 14, 2011.

20 Quesitons with Sakura Maku

Clough, Robert. “Memory and Form: Windy Corner Magazine #3.” (blog). August 27, 2009.

http://highlowcomics.blogspot.com/2009/08/memory-and-form-windy-corner-magazine-3.html

Publications as Author

“X.O. Exoplanets.” The Brooklyn Rail, February 2014.

“Momoko Rose.” Chromazoid 2. January 5, 2013.

“Dark Tomato 2,” The Brooklyn Rail, November 2012.

“Pigeons, Bums, Burning Bright.” Tinhouse, Portland Brooklyn #53: (Vol.4 No.1 Fall 2012).

“You Turn My Lights.” Windy Corner Magazine #3. January 1, 2009.

Self-Publications | Comics | Zines

Foot Anime Book, 2014

Dark Tomato (Domino Books), 2011

You (Holster), 2009

Flash, 2006

East Broadway, 2006

Cheebcheebshkaa, 2005

Let’s Dance, 2004

Yeah Yeah Yeah Let’s Start With The Things That Are Good To Eat, 2004

The Purse of the Raisin-god, 2003-4

Jason Is My Hero, 2003

Barf, 2002

RELATED WORK EXPERIENCE

2013-2014

Adjunct Instructor, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY (Pre-College Linocut-Bookmaking and Pre-College Cartooning)

2011-2014

Studio Assistant, Deborah Kass Studio, Brooklyn, NY

2014

Manga Instructor, Hi Art, New York, NY

Time In, New York, NY (Working with art and public school students from Harlem and the Bronx, NY)

2013

Visiting Artist, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, October 22

Juror, Ignatz Awards, Small Press Expo, Bethesda, MD

2009

Visiting Artist, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, November 9

2007-2013

Printmaking Lab Assistant, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

2007

Teaching Assistant, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (Introductory Silkscreen)

2006

Summer Teaching Fellow in Painting, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT

2006-2007

Graduate Gallery Teacher, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (Worked with art and New Haven public school students)

2005-2006

Printshop Monitor, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT

2000-2002

America Reads Challenge Tutor, Warren Street Center for Children and Families, Brooklyn, NY

Worked with reading and public school students from Brooklyn, NY

Foot Anime Book Video, 9 min 51 sec, Projected video part of performed piece
(BK Brain Frame 2, Brooklyn Historical Society) April 25, 2014