Profile

Leiko Ikemura (born 1951 in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, Japan) is a contemporary artist based in Berlin and Cologne. Her work spans painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, prints, and photography. Ikemura is known for recurring motifs such as young female figures and rabbit forms, exploring themes of transformation, nature, and cross-cultural identity.

She studied Spanish at Osaka University of Foreign Studies from 1970 to 1972, and then studied fine arts at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de Santa Isabel de Hungría in Seville, Spain, from 1973 to 1978. In 1979 she moved to Zurich and began her professional artistic career. During the early 1980s she moved to Germany, where she became involved in the Neo-Expressionist movement.

In 1991 she was appointed Professor of Painting at the Berlin University of the Arts, a position she held until 2015. Since 2014 she has also been a professor at Joshibi University of Art and Design in Japan. She continues to live and work between Germany and Japan.

Selected Exhibitions

2011 — Leiko Ikemura: Transfiguration, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (Japan)

2013 — Leiko Ikemura: i-migration, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (Germany)

2019 — Leiko Ikemura: Our Planet — Earth & Stars, The National Art Center, Tokyo (Japan)

2019 — Leiko Ikemura: Toward New Seas, Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland)