LEIKO

IKEMURA

Leiko Ikemura speaks a unique, very characteristic visual language in her paintings, drawings and sculptures: She creates imaginary worlds in which landscape, figure and space inextricably merge in their abstraction. In doing so, she avoids any substantive demarca-tion – colours, motifs and forms flow smoothly into one another.

A pulsating pictorial structure arises with an inherent atmosphere that appears alien, yet touches us deeply. The uniqueness in Ikemura’s art is undoubtedly due to the influences of Eastern and Western culture on her. She grew up in Japan and emigrated to Spain when she was 21 where she studied painting and produced sculptures. Later she lived for several years in Switzerland, and since 1985 in Cologne and Berlin. From 1991 until 2015 she taught as professor for painting at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. She has been granted numerous exhibitions at renowned museums around the world.

The Haus am Waldsee in Berlin is currently showing a comprehensive exhibition of her work from 19 February – 17 April 2016. New paintings and works on paper that depict ethereal beings as hybrid creatures that move between worlds are presented in the gallery at Niebuhrstrasse. These works are directly connected to the large-format cosmic landscape paintings that were made last year and of which an extensive selection can be seen in Kunst Lager Haas at Lise-Meitner-Strasse. The paintings are juxtaposed with large-format sculptures of female figures.