Work | NAOMI MITSUKO MAKKELIE

Battlefield on Valentine’s Day, 50cm x 70cm, watercolour, ink and pastelchalk on paper on paper, 2022

Detail 'Battlefield on Valentine’s Day'

‘私が最も驚いたのは、COVID が人間関係に与えた悪影響です。
特にロックダウン中は、これが通常、分裂の流行を引き起こすことに気づきました.
残念ながら、これは最初で最後のロックダウンでも起こりました。
検疫/ロックダウン中、
ほとんどのカップルはこれまで以上に多くの時間を一緒に過ごすことを余儀なくされています。
それが人々の精神状態に与えた影響は、
Covidが私の年齢の人々の身体状態に与えた影響よりも大きかった.
このような状況でよく見られる絶望感、退屈感、憂鬱感は、
生き残るために人間関係から多くのことを奪います。
私を魅了するのは、パートナーと過ごす時間が増えると、通常、
関係にマイナスの影響があるということです.
これは、心理学的、哲学的、生物学的に興味深いトピックです。’

What struck me most is the negative effect that COVID had on relationships.
Especially during lockdowns I’ve noticed that this usually triggers an epidemic of break-ups.
Unfortunately, this also happened to me the first and the last lockdown.
During quarantine/lockdown, most couples are forced to spend more time together than ever before.
The impact it had on people's mental states was bigger than the impact Covid had on the physical states of people my age.
The feelings of hopelessness, boredom and depression that are common in such situations take a lot out of relationships to survive.
What fascinates me is that spending more time with a partner usually has a negative effect on the relationship.
This is an interesting topic in psychological, philosophical and biological ways.

Overview

Detail 'Seasick p.2'

Overview

‘日本は、サメの新しい病気、SARS と COVID の突然変異を発見しました。
これは、人間にも感染する可能性があります。
日本は現在、これを防ぐためにできる限りのことを行っており、
すでにその地域のすべてのサメを殺しています’

(Japan has discovered a new disease in sharks,
a mutation of SARS and COVID, which could potentially infect humans as well.
Japan is now doing everything it can to prevent this,
and already kill all sharks in the area)
, 70cm x 50cm, ink, watercolor paint and pastel chalk on paper on paper, 2022

Detail '‘日本は、サメの新しい病気、SARS と COVID の突然変異を発見しました。...'

First Summer Of Covid, Amsterdam, 70cm x 50cm, watercolour, ink and pastelchalk on paper on paper, 2022

Detail 'First Summer Of Covid, Amsterdam'

Memoirs of a geisha, 70cm x 50cm, ink, watercolor paint, pastel chalk on paper on paper, 2022

Detail 'Memoirs of a geisha'

Peggy Blue, 70cm x 50cm, watercolour, ink and pastelchalk on paper on paper, 2022

Detail 'Peggy Blue'

Orange Fever, 50 x 40 cm (without frame), collage

Ode aan Dennis de Wit en z’n gabber Herman (2021)

The past year I became friends with my neighbour Dennis.
Dennis lost his job since Corona as a cook at FEBO and is enjoying most of his time at his selfmade terrace in front of his house.
I was enjoying my corona boredom too and we started hanging out.
I’m not used to people ringing my doorbell randomly (Probably due to Dutch social standards), but Dennis showed me that it’s quite nice sometimes to not plan anything.

Dennis is probably one of the biggest Ajax fans in Amsterdam, his whole house is filled with Ajax merchandise.

I’ve had a bit of a preconception about ‘hooligans’, although one of my dutch family members is a famous soccer referee.
Dennis showed me to not ‘judge a book by it’s cover’, or just to not judge someone by the way they look anyway.
He turned out to be one of the sweetest, most loyal and openminded people i’ve ever met.

That’s why I was inspired to make a work dedicated to Dennis and his cat Herman.
It was also interesting to focus with my art more on my dutch heritage.
In my work i’m mostly focussed on the Japanese part of my roots, while I actually grew up in the Netherlands.
Which I realised is kinda weird because my work is about the interpretation of culture, and not only about Japanese culture.
People mostly see me as a Japanese artist and I like to play with that blurred vision in how people interpret my work.
I also don’t really connect with most of my dutch family, always felt a bit of an outcast.
Although I have that even more with my Japanese family.

What I find interesting about the ’soccer/hooligan/ajaxied’ ‘culture’ is the nationalism, which is very strong among most of them.
I don’t see that very often in dutch people, or maybe that’s because I grew up in Amsterdam., 50cm x 40cm, collage, 2021

Orange Fever, 50 x 40 cm (without frame), collage

Ode aan Dennis de Wit en z’n gabber Herman (2021)

The past year I became friends with my neighbour Dennis.
Dennis lost his job since Corona as a cook at FEBO and is enjoying most of his time at his selfmade terrace in front of his house.
I was enjoying my corona boredom too and we started hanging out.
I’m not used to people ringing my doorbell randomly (Probably due to Dutch social standards), but Dennis showed me that it’s quite nice sometimes to not plan anything.

Dennis is probably one of the biggest Ajax fans in Amsterdam, his whole house is filled with Ajax merchandise.

I’ve had a bit of a preconception about ‘hooligans’, although one of my dutch family members is a famous soccer referee.
Dennis showed me to not ‘judge a book by it’s cover’, or just to not judge someone by the way they look anyway.
He turned out to be one of the sweetest, most loyal and openminded people i’ve ever met.

That’s why I was inspired to make a work dedicated to Dennis and his cat Herman.
It was also interesting to focus with my art more on my dutch heritage.
In my work i’m mostly focussed on the Japanese part of my roots, while I actually grew up in the Netherlands.
Which I realised is kinda weird because my work is about the interpretation of culture, and not only about Japanese culture.
People mostly see me as a Japanese artist and I like to play with that blurred vision in how people interpret my work.
I also don’t really connect with most of my dutch family, always felt a bit of an outcast.
Although I have that even more with my Japanese family.

What I find interesting about the ’soccer/hooligan/ajaxied’ ‘culture’ is the nationalism, which is very strong among most of them.
I don’t see that very often in dutch people, or maybe that’s because I grew up in Amsterdam., 50cm x 40cm, collage, 2021

20221014-6