Through her unique, nameless characters, or Creatures, Kobayashi Maiko portrays the fluctuations in and presence of emotions that cannot be captured with words. This exhibition focuses on new works featuring Liminal Creatures that quietly connect with the heart.
What Remains at the End
2023
Acrylic, oil pastel, color pencil, and Japanese paper on canvas
160 x 160 cm
Today’s Choice
2024
Acrylic, color pencil, and Japanese paper on canvas
45.5 x 60.5 cm
Blue Pain
2018
Acrylic on Canvas
80 x 60 cm
Softly, One, Another.
2025
Acrylic, color pencil, and Japanese paper on canvas
41 x 27.3 cm
Kobayashi Maiko
Born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture in 1977, she is a contemporary artist. After graduating from Musashino Art University Junior College, Department of Design, majoring in Spatial Design, she completed a Master's in Art Practice at Northumbria University, School of Arts and Social Sciences, UK, in 2008. She paints unique creatures that explore familiar psychology and the fluctuations of existence. She is currently based in Tokyo and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and overseas, including in Asia, the United States, and France. Her collection of works, FORMS OF BEING (ARTDYNE), was published in 2024.
The creatures I paint are neither children nor adults, neither human nor animal. They are not dominated by any particular emotion. They quietly exist, moving back and forth between the indefinable feelings and thoughts that arise within me, reacting to the small, subtle discrepancies I often encounter living in this society. They are liminal beings, Liminal Creatures.
I feel as if I am somehow floating as I live my life. Contrary to the light-hearted nuance of that word, there is always a slight sense of anxiety and discomfort. I muster a little courage to overcome it. Being alone is perhaps the unit of each of our existences. I ponder what a deep dialogue with myself brings me, and in this, the other party is my inner self. It makes it possible to quietly resonate with someone else who is also floating in this world.
Kobayashi Maiko