Born in Shiga Prefecture, Maki Mizuno is a Japanese urushi lacquer artist whose practice encompasses contemporary urushi art, watercolor painting, and kintsugi. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Crafts, at Kyoto City University of Arts in 2017, specializing in urushi lacquering.
Founded in 1880 as Japan’s oldest public art university, Kyoto City University of Arts offers rigorous training that brings traditional craftsmanship into dialogue with the history, material science, and contemporary possibilities of urushi. This foundation continues to inform Mizuno’s exploration of the material across both sculptural and functional forms.
Her practice moves between delicate watercolors inspired by the natural landscapes of Japan and sculptural works created with urushi lacquer. Drawing upon traditional decorative techniques such as raden, or mother-of-pearl inlay, she constructs surfaces in which color, light, and material depth are closely intertwined. Her contemporary urushi works received top honors at exhibitions held at the Shiga Museum of Art in both 2023 and 2024.
A painterly sensitivity to composition and color extends throughout Mizuno’s work. Vivid hues are often set against the deep black of urushi, creating contrasts that shift with the light and invite sustained observation. Rather than functioning as decoration alone, color becomes a means of giving form to changing emotions, perceptions, and the quiet passage of time.
In her kintsugi practice, Mizuno brings this same attention to balance, rhythm, and visual depth to the restoration of each vessel. She considers the object’s original form together with the character of its damage, allowing the restored lines to become an integral part of the composition. Each vessel is approached not simply as an object to be recovered, but as a form whose history can remain visible within a renewed whole.
Mizuno has also served as the kintsugi supervisor for a manga centered on the art of kintsugi, contributing her technical knowledge to ensure an authentic representation of its materials and processes.
Across contemporary urushi art, watercolor, and kintsugi, Mizuno’s work encourages a quiet reconsideration of familiar things. Through the interplay of color and darkness, fragility and continuity, she creates works that invite reflection on the subtle beauty held within everyday experience.
