Maiko Kanno (b.1983)

Maiko Kanno conjures a series of powerful scenes. She depicts girls in all of her paintings and through employing brown hues she generates a rustic feeling. She illustrates organic scenes that portray the girls as an untainted object. The perspective in her paintings is formed in an innovative manner, and she indicates her focal subject by challenging the sizes of the objects in the background.

The girls in her paintings project a child-like gaze, and stare directly at the viewer. The subject’s gaze is very innocent, yet simultaneously it has a sense of self-consciousness. The eyes have been painted with an almost translucent sky-blue, which compels the viewer to affix their gaze at the girls’ eyes. The unswerving subject of girls in Maiko’s paintings depicts the artist’s interest in female childhood, and perhaps a fond memory from her own infancy. Her impressionist rendering of this subject re-enforces the subjects being drawn from her memory, as it amalgamates a sequence of abstract images.

Maiko graduated from Tonhoku Sekatu Bunka College in 2006, and has presented her works in Miyagi, Japan, including three solo exhibitions in 2006, 2008 and 2009. Her works were also displayed at the Asia Female Art exhibition in 2007, held in South Korea. As a sign of Maiko’s artistic excellence she was awarded with the Maywadenki prize in Japan in 2003.