In the Studio with Leiko Ikemura

“The uncertainty of our time brings many questions, but also possibilities. The female figures initiate new life, holding it in their arms and in their body as a part of themselves.”

Lisson is pleased to host Leiko Ikemura’s first exhibition with the gallery, featuring many of the themes present in her work over the past 30 years, including a wide range of media from paintings in tempera to bronze figures and glass forms. The installation revolves around a central, three-and-a-half metre rabbit/woman figure, known as Usagi Janus (2024). This hand-sculpted and hand-patinated, protective spirit – part-bunny, part-bodhisattva of compassion – provides respite from the outside world in her conical-shaped bodily enclosure, the tiny punctures in her mothering skirt creating an internal universe of projected stars. The giant’s two faces – one staring forward, the other looking backwards – refer to the many alter egos and avatars that appear throughout Ikemura’s oeuvre, some of which can be seen in the smaller bronze pieces and crystal heads. The Janus-faced figure represents less of an either/or dialectic than a it does state of in-betweenness, one she seeks to explore through her anthropomorphic creatures and objects, or else in the spaces that dwell neither in light nor dark, neither in good nor evil, but rather in a twilit dusk and a zone of uncertainty.

Film by Laura Bushell.