Vienna,
Soft palette, look at the East, openness to poetry and echoes of Odilon Redon. Born in 1951 in the Japanese town of Tsu, Leiko Ikemura studied Spanish literature in Osaka before moving to Spain in 1972 and training in painting in Seville. He then moved to Switzerland at the end of the seventies, and since the eighties he has lived in Germany: at the Berlin University of the Arts he has taught painting classes; In the last decade, she is also a visiting professor at Joshhibi University of Art and Design in Japan.
One of her largest exhibitions so far can be visited until April at the Albertina in Vienna: “Motherscape” explores her treatment of universal issues, such as femininity, change or identity, in works in diverse techniques, from luminous paintings and minimalist drawings to sculptures in glazed terracotta, glass and bronze. Some of its motifs will be recurring: hybrid beings, fusions of the human body and the landscape that refer to the close connection between humanity and nature.
These themes organize the route of this exhibition, which begins precisely with its landscapes, which we cannot understand in a conventional sense. She describes them as body rhythms and undulating movements that create spaces; The sensation of fluidity and change prevails in them. In the paintings, transparent layers of color and smooth transitions between light and dark allow figure and background to merge. The luminosity and tones structure these spaces and connect abstraction with figuration; This gives the compositions an open and dynamic overall impression.
Next, we will see their motherhood, not seen from a traditional family sense, but as a creative and life-giving force that is active in all living beings. Ikemura understands this notion as an energy that transcends gender classifications and serves as a metaphor for artistic imagination.
The title of the exhibition derives precisely from this idea: a “landscape of motherhood” in which this force becomes effective; an open and unlimited mental enclave where all elements are intimately connected. Her mother figures respond to this state of openness and transformation.
The female figures within the section are also in a transition phase. Girls. They symbolize the future, uncertainty and the desire for change; These are not representations of external reality, nor portraits, but expressions of an inner movement: images of an evolving consciousness. In its physical openness, which does not follow a fixed form, lies vulnerability, hope and expectation.
Within this group, different feminine archetypes emerge: the primal girl, who remains in a state of perpetual becoming; figures of girls or women that embody maternal capacity; and those who, as observers from above, adopt a distant, almost spiritual perspective. In all their manifestations, they confront the world.
A fourth section is for the aforementioned future. For Leiko Ikemura, there is no finished work and each sculpture, each painting and each drawing are part of a continuous process: her working method is intuitive and physical, paying attention to the properties of the material and allowing chance.
Clay, bronze or glass are not neutral for her: I want the material to speak. Let him guide me, and not the other way around. Thus, the porosity of the clay, the transparency of the glass or the patina of the bronze significantly determine the shape, surface and expression of his figures. And the color gradients, light refractions and irregular textures give the sculptures their vibrant presence, but together with the cracks, breaks and fingerprints, which make the creation process visible. In the drawings and pastels, the future seems to reveal itself, however, in the transformation of lines and motifs; in the flow, dissolution and rediscovery of forms. For Ikemura, ultimately, this gradual reconversion is also a physical issue.
A final section of the exhibition, Essenceintertwines human, animal and plant structures, and points to a world where everything is interconnected. For Ikemura, animals are “spiritual beings with their own emotional energy,” and trees, “living beings that often survive much longer than human life.” His art follows this holistic conception: many sculptures offer gaps or permeable forms that incorporate light and space, while the rounded bodies evoke configurations of nature.
Leiko Ikemura. “Motherscape”
ALBERTINE
Karlsplatz 5
Vienna
Until April 6, 2026
