Leiko Ikemura—de sensu

Starting from a state of uncertainty, Ikemura explores the possibility of reorienting oneself in a world marked by change. Sharpening the senses appears here as a process of searching and rediscovering—an awakening of awareness toward one’s own environment.

The spatial design of the exhibition is defined by three green figures—›Green Baby,‹ ›Green Mom,‹ and ›Dear Spirit.‹ Green walls and lighting accents in yellow and dark blue create an atmosphere reminiscent of the transition from day to night, evoking the cycle of becoming and passing away. The figure ›mamagirl‹ seems to accompany this threshold as a watchful presence.

With her new sculpture ›Milk Lady,‹ Ikemura further develops her exploration of care, transformation, and renewal. The figure absorbs energy within itself and releases it as nourishment for new life. In this way, the exhibition unfolds as a cycle without beginning or end.

Since the 1980s, she has explored themes of transition, transcultural aspects, and collective awareness beyond nations and genders. The artist seamlessly shifts between luminous, otherworldly and often monumental paintings, introspective drawings and watercolours, glazed terracotta sculptures, glass and ceramics.

Focusing on the transient innocence of childhood, Ikemura’s female spirits are defiant and independent, yet fragile and ethereal, almost ghost-like, bestowing the spirits with a composite power to exist within multiple worlds, between dreaming and waking states.  Mythical hybrid creatures between humans and animals populate her artistic world. Among them, the ›Usagi‹ combines rabbit ears with a female body. First created after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, this figure personifies universal suffering, resilience, and renewal.

Fusing Eastern and Western art—conceiving a realm inspired by East Asian sansuiga painting traditions, old Japanese masters, surrealism, post-war abstraction, and the revival of figurative painting in the 1980s—Ikemura’s spiritual works are imbued with a raw and tender presence that highlights the intimate relationship between human, animal, plant, mineral forms, and cosmology.

Leiko Ikemura (イケムラレイコ, 池村玲子) was born in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, Japan, and lives and works in Berlin. She studied at Osaka University of Foreign Studies and the University of Fine Arts in Seville before settling in Europe. From 1991 to 2015, she was Professor of Painting at the Universität der Künste Berlin.

Ikemura’s works are represented in major international museum collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris; the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo; the Kunstmuseum Basel; and the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf. Her most recent solo exhibitions include ›Motherscape‹, ALBERTINA, Vienna (2025); ›Das Meer in den Bergen‹, Kunstmuseum Chur (2025); ›Rising Light / Frozen Moment‹, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2024–2025); ›Floating Spheres‹, Kunsthalle Emden (2024); ›When Animals Become Art‹, The Feuerle Collection, Berlin (2023); ›Museo de Arte de Zapopan‹, Guadalajara, Mexico (2023); ›Witty Witches‹, Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin (2023); and ›Towards New Seas‹, Kunstmuseum Basel (2019). In 2025, she was honored by the Japanese government as a “Person of Cultural Merit.”