Leiko IkemuraTransfiguration (German and English Edition)

Over more than thirty years, Leiko Ikemura (b. Mie, Japan, 1951; lives and works in Berlin and Cologne) has built an oeuvre that encompasses paintings, watercolors, drawings, and terracotta and bronze sculptures. In the 1980s, the artist devoted herself to painting; in this early phase of her oeuvre, intense colors and expressive brushwork convey a sense of strong emotions. Since the early 1990s, figures of girls appear as a central theme in her pictures and sculptures. Leiko Ikemura sees herself as an interloper between the arts of Japan and the Western world. Occidental influences are also evident in the motif of the head, a second central theme of her art. The largeformat landscapes she began work on in 2007 engage Japanese art in the forms of stylized mountains, rivers, and clouds.