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Far from home, Japanese contemporary artist Makoto Aida endlessly tweaks his latest masterpieces in a Beijing studio. His provocative, perverted and political large-scale paintings—one a mountain made entirely of dead salarymen; another a waterfall surrounded by carbon copy schoolgirls—occupy all of his attention. That is, when he’s not procrastinating by smoking, drinking or spending time with his visiting wife and son. Never boring, this portrait of the artistic process is also the portrait of an artsy family that doesn’t fit the mold. Makoto’s son’s trouble in school is seen as a good thing, a sign of individuality, not cause for concern. The pleasure and pain of creating art and letting it go out into the world, completed or not, also applies to raising a child. An artist’s work is never done and neither is a parent’s. Angie Driscoll

Media Coverage

• NOW Magazine review