Leiko Ikemura facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Leiko Ikemura
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| Born | 22 August 1951 Tsu, Mie Prefecture, Japan
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| Nationality | Japanese/Swiss |
| Alma mater | Academia de Bellas Artes, Spain |
| Known for | Melbourne International Biennial 1999 |
| Style | painting, sculpture, drawing, watercolor, prints, and photography |
Leiko Ikemura (イケムラレイコ, Ikemura Reiko, born 22 August 1951 in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, Japan) is a famous Japanese-Swiss artist. She creates art using many different materials. These include oil paints, sculptures, and watercolors.
Leiko Ikemura lives and works in both Cologne and Berlin, Germany. She also teaches painting at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. Since the 1970s, her art has been shown all over the world. She is known for her unique style, which often mixes animals, humans, and plants. Her art creates magical worlds full of symbols. Her works are kept in major museums like the Centre Pompidou and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. In 2023, she had her first solo show in Mexico.
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Leiko Ikemura's Life Story
Leiko Ikemura first studied Spanish at Osaka University in Japan from 1970 to 1972. After that, she moved to Spain to study art. She attended the Academia de Bellas Artes in Granada and Seville from 1973 to 1978.
In 1979, Ikemura moved to Zurich, Switzerland, to become a full-time artist. Her first big art show was in 1983 in Bonn, Germany. That same year, she won an artist residency in Nuremberg. This helped her to focus on her art.
A year later, in 1984, she moved to Munich, Germany. Then, in 1986, she moved to Cologne. In Cologne, she became very interested in making sculptures. She started working with materials like bronze and ceramic.
In 1991, Leiko Ikemura became a professor of painting. She taught at the Universität der Künste (University of the Arts) in Berlin. She still lives and works in Berlin and Cologne. Since 2014, she has also taught at the Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo. She speaks Japanese, Spanish, German, and English. She feels that both Japan and Switzerland are her homes.
Exploring Leiko Ikemura's Art
Ikemura uses many different ways to create her art. She makes drawings, paintings, sculptures, and even videos. While she uses these materials throughout her career, her work can also be seen in different periods. Each period often focuses on certain themes or subjects.
Some early artists who influenced her include Nietzsche, Matisse, Goya, El Greco, and Picasso. However, her art has grown beyond these influences. It mixes them with ideas about radical feminism, history, and mysticism. This makes it hard to tell which parts of her art are Japanese and which are European.
Early Drawings and Their Meaning
Leiko Ikemura started her art career in Switzerland mainly by drawing. Even though she now works with many other materials, her drawings are important artworks on their own. They are not just practice sketches for her paintings or sculptures.
Ikemura feels a special connection to drawing. She says it is "immediate and honest." Being honest is a very important part of her art and her life. She also loves how many different styles she can use in her drawings. She once said that her drawings from different times look so different, people might think a hundred different artists made them!
Painting Landscapes and Stories
In the early 1980s, Ikemura felt her art was changing. She was working in Germany with other "wild painters." She noticed her brush strokes were becoming very strong, and her art felt more intense. To find a new direction, she went to the Swiss Alps. There, she began painting landscapes.
In the 1990s, she started making both small paintings and large artworks called triptychs. A triptych is a painting made of three panels joined together. Ikemura's triptychs often show landscapes. They mix images from European and Japanese scenery. They also include animals.
Art experts believe she uses triptychs to connect different cultures. This format was often used in Europe for religious stories. Ikemura's triptychs don't show religious scenes. But using the three panels still makes people think about deeper meanings. For example, in her work Genesis, she shows a Japanese road called the Tōkaidō. But the title "Genesis" links it to a biblical story. This creates an interesting, abstract story in her art.
The Girl Motif in Her Art
The image of a young girl started appearing often in Ikemura's art in the early 1990s. It has been a common subject ever since. Ikemura explained why she chose this theme in an interview in 2011.
She said that often, women in art are shown how men see them. She felt it was important for her to show girls at a tricky age when they are growing up. She wanted to show them as real people, not just as objects to be looked at. You can see this idea in her "Cabbage Heads" sculptures and her "Miko" oil paintings.
Ikemura's art also often explores the feelings and sometimes conflicts between mothers and their children.
Rabbits, Earthquakes, and Usagi Kannon
In recent years, rabbits have become a very important symbol in Ikemura's art. You can find them in her drawings, paintings, and sculptures. She chose the rabbit because it has many different meanings. In Japanese folk stories, the rabbit is linked to the moon. It also appears in European art by artists like Joseph Beuys and Albrecht Dürer.
Rabbits are also a symbol of fertility in many cultures. And a famous rabbit is in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. This book has a dreamlike world, much like the magical worlds Ikemura creates.
Leiko Ikemura was very moved by the Tohoku Earthquake in Japan in March 2011. Because of this, she created her first large Usagi Kannon sculpture. This sculpture is over 3 meters (about 10 feet) tall. It mixes a rabbit with the Mother Kannon. Kannon is the Japanese Bodhisattva of Compassion, a figure known for kindness and healing.
The bottom part of the Usagi Kannon sculpture is hollow. This allows people to walk inside it. This gives them a feeling of safety and healing. Different versions of Usagi Kannon have been shown in many public places. These include places in Valencia, a train station in Recklinghausen, and museums in Japan and Germany.
Ikemura's sculptures often have small differences. These can be planned artistic choices. But sometimes, they come from small "mistakes" during the art-making process. She sees these as chances to make the artwork even better, like a musician adding a new note to a song.
Exhibitions (selection)
- 2010: "Leiko Ikemura. August-Macke-Preisträgerin 2008", Sauerland-Museum-Arnsberg, Germany
- 2011: "Leiko Ikemura: Transfiguration", The National Museum of Modern Art, MOMAT, Tokyo, Japan
- 2012: "Leiko Ikemura. Korekara or the Serenity of Fragile Being", Museum of Asian Art, Berlin, Germany
- 2013: "Leiko Ikemura. i-migration", Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany
- 2014: "Leiko Ikemura: PIOON", Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Nagaizumi, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
- 2015/16: "All about Girls and Tigers. Leiko Ikemura", Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst Köln, Germany
- 2016: "Leiko Ikemura. ...and suddenly the wind turns", Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Germany
- 2017: "Ikemura und Nolde", Kunstmuseum Ahrenshoop, Germany
- 2018: "Im Atelier Liebermann: Leiko Ikemura im Dialog mit Donata und Wim Wenders", Stiftung Brandenburger Tor – Max Liebermann Haus, Berlin
- 2019: "Leiko Ikemura Our Planet – Earth & Stars", The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
- 2019: "Leiko Ikemura – Toward New Seas", Kunstmuseum Basel, Schwitzerland
- 2020: "Leiko Ikemura – In Praise of Light", St.-Matthäus-Kirche, Berlin, Germany
- 2021: "Leiko Ikemura – Usagi in Wonderland", Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, Great Britain
- 2021: "Leiko Ikemura: Here we are/Aquí Estamos", Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, Valencia, Spain
- 2022: "Leiko Ikemura: Wenn Pfauen Flügel öffnen", Herbert Gerisch-Stiftung, Neumünster, Germany
See also
In Spanish: Leiko Ikemura para niños
