Leiko Ikemura Our Planet - Earth & Stars

Overview

We are pleased to present this large-scale solo exhibition by Leiko Ikemura, who has worked extensively in Europe and is widely acclaimed internationally.

Leiko Ikemura went to Spain in the 1970s, then to Switzerland, then since the early 1980s has been active in Germany. Ikemura works in a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, drawing, watercolor, prints, and photography. This versatile use of diverse media points to the unique artistic task Ikemura has set for herself, in terms of expressing infinite possibilities still invisible yet latent in the creative process. Through approximately 210 works, this exhibition traces the arc of Ikemura’s determined approach to this seemingly impossible challenge.

Ikemura started painting in earnest while living in Switzerland, then moved to Germany in 1983. At the time painting was dominated by the Neo-Expressionist movement, in which emotions were conveyed through powerful colors and shapes. Ikemura also immersed herself in experimentation with this mode, in fiercely expressive paintings addressing the difficulties of being a woman and a stranger, and drawings with richly varied lines that brim with humor and humanity. After this body of work, since the 1990s she has dealt with themes such as small creatures and innocent girls, mothers and children, human figures merging with trees and mountains, and mythical primeval scenes that evoke birth and death.

Contemporary society, founded on the control and organization of people and nature, is continually being disrupted not only by natural disasters but also by all sorts of human-made calamities such as nuclear accidents. Ikemura’s ephemeral girls floating in empty spaces, mothers with children (a theme rarely depicted directly in contemporary art) and small fantastic hybrid creatures blending into the natural environment, convey a powerful philosophy of acceptance and embrace of the diverse beings born into this world, or to be born in the future, just as they are. The introspective world of her work – quiet, modest, and immersed deeply in its own distinctive vision – is in this sense keenly critical of the world and society surrounding us today. This vision rewards the viewer richly with revelations that only Ikemura can convey with a keen sensitivity nurtured in the very different soils of Japan and Europe.

Her latest large solo exhibition, Leiko Ikemura: Transfiguration was held at The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and Mie Prefectural Art Museum in 2011, and the artist says that since then she has become more consciously engaged with society. The current exhibition is organized as a group of 16 installations that retrace the trajectory of Ikemura’s unique practice and explorations into the essence of a society in crisis, and deliver the viewer multifaceted vicarious experiences. The climax of the exhibition is a room of large landscape paintings presenting a comprehensive vision of the artist’s recent worldview in expansive, mythical spaces. We think that this exhibition will serve as a portal for many viewers to see into and think about the vast world that lies inside these landscapes.