'Whats the Smallest Unit in Art' by Makito Takagi

Makito Takagi is an emerging artist who has exhibited in Japan and abroad since graduating from the Oil Painting Course, Department of Painting at Tama Art University. While using reliable painting techniques, Takagi has created images that evoke the depths of the psyche and otherworldly worlds that we do not usually observe. These images are arranged in a series by composition: the “Snap-shot” series, in which creatures are depicted as if accidentally photographed with a flash in the dark, a theme he has explored since his days as an art college student; the “Moon-shot” series, depicting motifs bathed in light from sources like the moon; the “Nice Corm!” series, portraying plant parts as creatures; and the “Stack” series, showcasing character- ised and stacked boxes, cans, metal and machinery, etc.

“In the past, I created a series of works, each exploring different themes. However, in recent years, I started to see commonalities within these various themes and realized that there was one question residing inside me. Could it be that the concept of art exerts a force upon us, much like the laws of physics, shaping our consciousness, expressions, and fragments of the images we create?” Or, to put it another way, “Is there an artistic space, resembling a metaverse, spreading within our very lives?” 

Recently, I have come to think that to unravel that question, I might have been using characters as symbols, attempting to fix a map of thought—a painting—onto the canvas. In the vertical and horizontal axes of artistic space, and in the emergence of a new directional axis, I find hope—and this sparks a strong desire to reach that place.”