Leiko Ikemura
Born in 1951.
Leiko Ikemura Japan, is a Japanese and Swiss artist whose career has developed between Asia and Europe. After studying Spanish language and literature in Osaka, she studied fine art in Spain, first in Granada and then in Seville. In 1979, she settled in Switzerland and began working there as an artist.
The National Art Center, Tokyo, emphasises that this Swiss period marked a decisive moment in her development: the 2019 retrospective there brought together early drawings and large expressionist paintings made in this context. She subsequently settled in Germany and taught painting at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Her work encompasses painting, drawing, watercolour, sculpture, ceramics, glass and photography. Female figures, animals and hybrid forms appear in often open landscapes, where human beings and living things seem to be undergoing transformation. Rather than limiting herself to an opposition between Japanese and Western cultures, Ikemura brings her experiences and visual repertoires into dialogue, with recurring attention to transitional states, beginnings and the relationship between beings.
Her terracotta and glass sculptures extend these investigations into space and material.
Her works are held in the collections of numerous museums, including the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Kunstmuseum Bern and Kunsthaus Zürich, mentioned in the list of collections published on her website. The circulation of her works among these institutions underscores the international reach of a practice born of several territories and media.
