Lisson Gallery is pleased to present the first presentation of work by Japanese-Swiss artist Leiko Ikemura in London, with the artist unveiling a solo booth for Lisson’s booth at Frieze London 2024, also marking the beginning of her representation by the gallery. Ikemura, an internationally active artist based in Berlin, masterfully navigates multiple mediums, from ethereal oil paintings to introspective drawings, watercolors, and sculptures. Her practice is a continuous dialogue between the past and present, the personal and the universal. For her Frieze booth, Ikemura will showcase a selection of tempera and oil paintings on jute as well as glass, terracotta, and bronze sculptures. This presentation offers a glimpse into her unique vision, ahead of the upcoming solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Emden (2024), Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2024), and Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur (2025). Ikemura will also open her first exhibition at Lisson Gallery in Spring 2025 in New York.
Read morePresented on the booth is Usagi Kannon Pray (168) (2022), representing one of the most prominent motifs in her work: the ‘usagi,’ Japanese for rabbit, first appeared in her work following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster. This mythical hybrid creature, considered a messenger for the ‘kami’ (gods), integrates rabbit ears with a human face, symbolising universal suffering, resilience, and renewal. This smaller bust is reminiscent of Ikemura’s bronze sculpture, Usagi Kannon (Rabbit Bodhisattva of Mercy) (2013/ 2018), presented at the Sainsbury Centre Sculpture Park and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Visitors will notice the usagi figure throughout Lisson’s Frieze London presentation.
Ikemura’s work is influenced by Japanese Shintoism, an ancient belief system that reveres the presence of spirits in all creatures, objects, and landscapes and emphasizes the interconnectedness of nature and humanity. This worldview emerges throughout the presentation in her cosmic landscape paintings, such as Yellow Scape (2020), Lago Rondo (2020) and B-bay (2020), where feminine forms morph into mythical forestscapes. Rooted in these beliefs, Ikemura also reinterprets Western archetypes of the female form, a subject she has explored through themes of transition, cross-culturalism, collective responsibility, and sexuality since the 1980s.
Through her practice, Ikemura seeks to emancipate the feminine body from its conventional depictions in art and disrupting social norms. Works such as Double Figure (2024) depict female figures in a state of transformation – defiant, independent, yet fragile and ethereal, almost ghost-like – representing the transient nature of girlhood. Similarly, Girl Standing in Yellow (2023) strikingly portrays a younger female figure set against vibrant, yellow-chartreuse background. The smallest painting on the booth, Haruko (2016) focuses on the face of a young female within a deep orange hue. The title of the work, a Japanese name that translates to “spring child,” touches further upon the innocence and delicate nature of childhood juxtaposed with an expression of wisdom.
