Ai Makita graduated from the Oil painting program of the Tsukuba University, Ibaraki (B.F.A.) in 2008, the Oil Painting Department of Tokyo Gakugei University (M.F.A.) in 2010, and Art and Education Program at Tokyo University of Arts (M.F.A.) in 2013.  Currently, she is living and working in New York and Tokyo. Her work has been presented extensively across Japan, Europe, Asia, and the United States, including Baert Gallery, Los Angeles (2025); Tokyo 8min, Tokyo (2025); Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art, Taiwan (2025); PARCEL, Tokyo (2024); Chilli Art Projects, London (2024); The Something Machine, New York (2024/2022); Mitsukoshi Contemporary, Tokyo (2022); mhPROJECTnyc, New York (2021); ANA InterContinental Tokyo (2021/2020/2019/2018). She has participated in residency programs at Vermont Studio Center, Vermont (2025), The Fores Project, London (2023), ART CAKE, New York (2020), SS Vallejo Varda Artist Residency, Sausalito (2018–2019), and Residency Unlimited, New York (2017). In 2026, Makita was named a finalist for the 18th Prisma Art Prize in Rome, Italy. She was awarded a Fellowship Grant from the Pola Art Foundation in 2017, the Prize at the 18th Taro Okamoto Award and the Artistic Cultural Award in Chiba City in 2015, and the Prize at the 1st Terrada Art Award in 2014. Her work is included in the following public and corporate collections: the Museum of Tokyo National University of the Arts, Chiba Bank, and the Takahashi Collection.

Ai Makita’s practice is a process of exploring the boundaries between machine and body, digital and analog. The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster confronted her with the terrifying reality of technology—meant to enrich human life—transforming into an uncontrollable threat. As she suggests, “This sense of awe and fear became the driving force behind my work.” In recent years, Makita has integrated AI–driven image generation into her process. She views the “miscommunications” that arise with AI as seeds of a new form of vitality, which she then manifests onto canvas through the deeply physical medium of oil painting. This is an animistic endeavor to bestow “metabolism” upon inorganic machines and imbue them with a soul.

Biography

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