The MAKO exhibition project that Casa Asia presented at the Spanish-Japanese Cultural Center in Salamanca, where it was exhibited for five months, now arrives at the Royal Tapestry Factory in Madrid, as part of a project that adapts to the space and character of the new headquarters that houses it with a new interpretation of his work in the world of textile design and ceramics.

The "MAKO" exhibition presents a representative selection of the artist's work: drawings and textile designs, as well as ceramics, enamels, and jewelry. The exhibition is complemented by a photographic archive and a documentary produced for this project by Casa Asia, along with the catalogue.

Ricard Bru, a doctor in art history and specialist in Japanese art, is the exhibition's curator. For him, "Mako Artigas has developed an extensive and fruitful career focused on the textile industry, print design, and, more recently, ceramics and enamel work. Her aesthetic vision draws from many sources and, above all, from a life surrounded by art and artists who, like a forest, have flourished with countless forms and colors around her."

Mako Artigas, profile

Mako Artigas (Tokyo, 1937) was born in interwar Japan to, after the end of the Second World War, emigrate from his country of origin and integrate into the avant-garde and modern environments of the West. She arrived in Spain in 1960 where she met Joan Gardy Artigas, ceramist and sculptor, with whom she married and had two children. The world of textile design and printing was what Mako Artigas lived and breathed from a very young age, because both families, father and mother, had a centuries-old tradition in the field of the textile industry.

The artist stood out as a textile designer in Paris in the sixties, seventies and eighties, while periodic stays in Gallifa, starting in the eighties, brought her closer to the world of ceramics. Thus, her textile design gave way and prominence to ceramics with pieces of a more intimate nature, from plates and bowls, to artistic vases and jewelry pieces full of vegetal, natural and colorful references. At 87 years old, Mako Artigas is still active in her workshop in the Catalan municipality of Gallifa.

This exhibition “MAKO. The sound of petals” It opened on September 19, 2024, at the Spanish-Japanese Cultural Center of the University of Salamanca. The exhibition will also tour Barcelona later this year.

Press release of the exhibition (DOC)

Text by the curator of the exhibition on Mako Artigas (PDF)