Info

photo credit: Umi O.


Sakura Maku was born in 1982 in Ibaraki, Japan and is based in New York, NY. Maku received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and an MFA in Painting & Printmaking from Yale University. Maku has presented her work at the Center for the Arts at Towson University, Towson, USA; the ICA Boston, Boston, USA; the Visual Arts Gallery at School of Visual Arts, New York, USA; the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, Italy; The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, New York, USA; and the Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey. Notable collections include Japigozzi: The Jean Pigozzi Collection of Contemporary Japanese Art.


Sakura Maku is a contemporary painter working in water-soluble oil on canvas. Exploring scenes in which figures interact with one another, Maku’s work focuses on female figures depicted from a female gaze. In her work, Maku utilizes multiple styles to paint the figure. Non-linear narratives are, for Maku, experiments that explore the personal, cultural, and collective. The addition of synthetic and contemporary colors further emphasize disparate elements visually working together on the canvas. Her current series (2023-present) investigates motherhood, intercultural identities, and diaspora through East Asian and Asian American points-of-view.