Mariko Makino

Mariko Makino is an American artist who works with glass and wood to create illuminated sculptures that explore the tension between control and release. Her practice begins with rhythm—small movements repeated until a pattern takes shape, a process more grown than designed. Shaped by time spent in both Tokyo and New York, she approaches material as a responsive system—one that evolves through repetition and change. “Each time you repeat, you’re adding to the energy that you’ve already put in,” she says. “Neon can have a loud commercial connotation and I’m always attempting to strip these qualities and render neon as instead having serene qualities, organic and visibly hand-made,” she continues. “Wood is often considered a building material that is hard, straight and sturdy. I like to enhance curves in wood to create a more feminine profile. By pairing the two materials together, the artificial and natural come into contact with each other in a new way.” For Side Hustle, Makino presents Ripple, a three-piece collection including Wall Relief Light, Floor Light, and Table Light, each derived from a single wood form repeated in different orientations. “As the form is arranged in a different way, new gaps develop and the ways the neon light reflects off surfaces shifts,” she says. “I wanted to think about how parts become a whole, and how by forming each part in a new composition, differences emerge, not redundancies.” Warm white and pink neons run through reclaimed longleaf pine, catching on grain and seam like water moving through stone.