Interview with Kahori Maki
Moving effortlessly between lush watercolours that swim about in their frames before one's eyes and densely-textured pencil works with overpowering realism and presence, graphic artist Maki Kahori is active not only across Japan but also overseas. Every now and then she will come out with something different: collaborations which see her creations mounted in extravagant frames, or perhaps a video piece. Each time this happens, Maki easily shrugs off the esteemed style that she has built up for herself and takes on an entirely new challenge, with a curiosity generous enough to inspire astonishment again and again. Eager to get to know more about her ideas and take a look at the source of her creative activity, we travelled to her studio, not forgetting to pay a visit to her roof terrace with its stunning view.
Window Display - Seibu Department Store (2010)
Looking back at how the style of her work has changed over time, it is easy to see just to what extent Maki has been driven by new desires. When I first came across her artwork, she was still producing watercolours. Stylish and extravagant, her work was in demand by fashion magazines everywhere. When I broach the subject of her work from that time, Maki smiles, telling me that "Nobody asks me about that stuff any more." She continues, "At the time, that was the kind of artwork that I liked. You know, depictions of stylish women in sitting in trendy cafes and so on. But then I started to lose interest in it. If the artist isn't talented, it's really not that great." Then she concludes nonchalantly, "And there are so many people out there who can do it better than me." Yet this is surely an example of modesty on Maki's part. Her work from this time shows evident sophistication, and her style maintains a great deal of popularity even now.
Mori o yuku (gallery ROCKET, 2003)
Le gout (gallery ROCKET, 2004)
With her private exhibitions 'Mori o yuku' ('Through the Forest') (2003) and 'Le gout' (2004), Maki, whose illustration work was in great demand, nonetheless chose to produce work in an utterly new style. For the installation 'Mori o yuku', a pictorial narrative much like a picture scroll was created with a strip in bold matt paint that ran around the walls. 'Le gout' featured work with wildly-shaped frames - although perhaps we would be better to call them a kind of sculpture. With these two exhibitions, Maki not only broke away from her previous style and body of imagery; she also smashed the existing concepts about the way in which illustration should be presented. "I can't start to make work, can't form any ideas, until the space has been determined. The conception that you would put on an exhibition because you'd produced a lot of pictures is a totally alien one to me. My motivation to make work is so as to decorate a certain space in a specific way. So if I'm commissioned to paint pictures to put in a certain room, I have absolutely no idea what to do until I visit the house and see the room." In both of these exhibitions, Maki assumed total control of the gallery space. The new works seemed to fit as well in the space as if they were sleeves sewn onto a garment being made by a master tailor.
Hakoniwa (VOID+, 2005)
In 2005, two years after 'Mori o yuku', Maki created the installation 'Hakoniwa' ('Miniature Garden'), where the four walls of VOID+ were covered in detailed pencil drawings. She says, "I wanted to do something in the style of a European picture book, the kind that takes a really long time to do. The gallery was very small, so I decided to fill all the walls and ceilings with the images so that the entire space was covered, and then hang the original pictures on top of that." The concept is simple, but of course putting it into practice is a lot harder.
"Initially, I didn't know how to do the walls, so I asked the printers to take photos of the originals and put them together, but they told me that it would be much better to scan them in. I really had no clue about anything," laughs Maki. "So I started to do it on a friend's laptop, but the data was so big that it soon was taking over two hours to save. And then, on the day that I had to send it to the printers, the computer stopped working. I had no idea what I should do, so I just took the laptop along to the printers and sobbed, "Please do something!" I realised then what a pain it was not to be able to do it myself, so I began to study how to learn Photoshop. I still can't use anything apart from Photoshop, mind you," she laughs.
For a 2005 laptop to break down completely is not unheard of, but you can't help but feel that it was Maki's sheer determination for the exhibition to go ahead which ensured that everything turned out alright in the end. The data from the crashed PC resurrected itself from the hard disk like a phoenix, and the overpowering space that was 'Hakoniwa' was completed after all. The installation also made waves overseas. Much like a phoenix herself, Maki had easily flown forth into a world which spread far beyond her miniature garden.
"I'm really interested in the process whereby my works become products of various kinds, or films, or interior spaces. I enjoy it when my pictures change form and find a larger audience." As she utters these words, it is immediately and strongly palpable that they touch upon that within her which generates the power to resist satisfaction with the current situation and keep pushing herself towards new challenges. Maki is above all a person with a great physicality about her, even if what she is searching for is something as vague as 'a dim light in the darkness'. When I ask her about her current plans, she says that she is planning to start her own brand based on the concept of 'products which come out of a single picture'; that, while visiting the Venice Biennale recently, she popped into a French primary school to give a workshop; that she gives four lessons a week in clothes design at Bunka Fashion College, but that she feels that she has to improve her technique as a teacher, for her students' sake. And then of course she makes work every day. Maki is so dedicated that it is not unusual for her to fall asleep at her desk.
"I read books by designers more than those written by artists. I really enjoy books by people like Kenya Hara and Naoto Fukasawa, who view things from a broad perspective. Their way of thinking is very fresh. I'd like to be like that one day," says Maki. When I enquire about her plans for the future, she answers, "I'd like to try decorating a hotel. Doing everything, from the wallpaper and the interior design, down to all the ornaments and things. But then sometimes I also think that I'm no good as an artist if I can't produce individual pictures of worth. So I'd also like to do some big pictures and do an exhibition as well." As I gaze at the large stock of unexhibited work lying in Maki's studio, I can't help but feeling that, in all likelihood, both things of these things will happen.
Text_Kenji Mori (BUILDING)
Translation_Polly BartonKahori Maki
Born 1969. After graduating from the Nihon University Arts Department in 1992, moved to New York. Returned to Japan in 1994 and began working as a freelance illustrator. Maki's work is esteemed highly for its superior technique and ability to evoke an utterly original world view. She takes part in many kinds of artistic collaborations, from spatial design and film work to high fashion.
Portfolio page on BUILDING website
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