Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center, Japan

土と星 Our Planet Earth and Stars, 17 Jan – 1 Apr 2019

Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center

Featuring more than 210 works, the large-scale solo exhibition 'Our Planet Earth and Stars' at The National Art Center Tokyo presents a comprehensive insight into Leiko Ikemura's artistic career. 

Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center
Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center
Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center

Covering some four decades of work, Leiko Ikemura explores a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, drawing, watercolour painting, printmaking, photography, and video, while depicting various aspects of creation and change as well as the latent potential for these things. Ikemura’s singularly ambiguous vision, exemplified by her integrated landscapes populated with young girls, spirits, small fantastic hybrid creatures, people and animals, easily assumes different forms from one image to the next.

Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center
Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center
Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center
Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center

Her work conveys the unyielding notion that as living beings we should strive to accept the diverse existence of all things exactly as we find them. Alternatively infused with humor, affection or pain, it is precisely the modest and introspective quality of Ikemura’s art that makes it such an incisive critique of today’s more and more stifling society. In recent years Ikemura has turned to large landscape paintings to manifest primordial narratives on a mythic scale. 

Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center
Leiko Ikemura at the Tokyo National Art Center

Credits: exhibition views of Leiko Ikemura "土と星 Our Planet Earth and Stars" at Tokyo National Art Center, 2019 © Leiko Ikemura. Courtesy Tokyo National Art Center. Photos Philipp von Matt.

For more information visit the institution's website.