Floating Island by MAKIKO KUDO

Makiko Kudo's figures float through landscapes of lush colour dense with natural growth. Alone, the figures have all the melancholy of lost children in a fairy tale. Allusions to a tradition of modern escape situate Kudo's paintings as strategic evasions of contemporary woes. Escape into fictive worlds - and Kudo's specific Japanese cultural context, the immersive universes of computer games and manga comics - might be a response that borders on resistance. Kudo's childhood within late-twentieth century Japan's socially conservative and economically depresses environment led her into a wilfully disengaged mode of existence.