Makiko Kudo’s whimsical scenes are populated by girls, trees, grass, flowers and small animals. Her palette is soft but varied, built up in thin layers of oil paint. The works are inspired by modernist painters like Claude Monet and Willem de Kooning, as well as classical Japanese art, and childhood television shows like Heidi, Girl of the Alps (1974). Stylistically, the manga-esque figures join the Superflat movement spearheaded by Takashi Murakami. The social context of growing up in Japan is also important to Kudo. As she explains, her generation sought to resist rigid social expectations of their parents' generation. This was intensified by the rise of alternate realities like cartoons and computer games, providing escapism from the ‘real world.’ Likewise, Kudo’s paintings proffer an exciting fantasy realm for their viewer to escape into.