Sakura Maku

Region: Northeast

Website: http://www.sakuramaku.com

City / State: New York, NY

I paint as though I’m cooking or driving. I map out directions and make different types of color-coded drawings that plan and predict what the thing might look like, all the while anticipating the final outcome. Sometimes my paintings are maps for drawings, comics, and prints. At times, I plan and plan and plan, and break the rules. My work often looks like pieces of drawings and prints taped together, woven with paint. I imagine my drawings in series of dimensional spaces. I think about how things in color and black-and-white relate. I apply thin layers of transparencies like sheets of colored acetate that let me make more colors with less. There’s nothing more compelling than a color so vibrant that one thin, even layer over white shines brighter than two or three. For a site-specific installation at the ICA/Boston I extended a comic strip into dimensional space. I see the activation of the wall and floor, or the wall and ceiling, as gestures that resonate with open books.