Flexcover, 22 x 31 cm, 176 pages, English/German
With almost 50 works from the last 40 years, Leiko Ikemura (b. in Tsu, Mie Prefecture; lives and works in Berlin and Cologne) presented an impressive cross-section of her work for her first solo exhibition in Northern Germany. Ikemura has also transformed the Peacock House on the grounds of the Gerisch Foundation into a new site of art on the occasion of the Foundation’s 20th anniversary. With the reclining girl figure Sleeping Figure in Red in her self-designed interior with delicate charcoal drawings, Ikemura picks up on central themes of her oeuvre. Nature, humans, animalistic creatures, flora, and fauna are all recurring motifs in Ikemura’s work. The artist moves freely between a wide range of media so that the viewer is constantly presented with new content and aesthetic terrains. Especially in the current crisis-ridden times, the artist’s commitment and the sharpness of her gaze come to feel highly topical. In paintings, watercolors, drawings, and terra-cotta or bronze sculptures, she focuses on the investigation of femininity, society’s relationship to the environment, and cosmic contexts.
