Interview with Leiko Ikemura
Leiko Ikemura appartiene a quella generazione di artiste per le quali il passaggio tra culture non è un tema, ma una condizione naturale del lavoro. Nata in Giappone e formatasi tra Oriente ed Europa, ha costruito nel tempo una ricerca che attraversa pittura, disegno e scultura, senza stabilire gerarchie tra i diversi mezzi.
In vista della sua mostra all’Accademia di Venezia, il 10 settembre 2026, abbiamo incontrato l'artista per parlare del suo percorso, delle immagini che ritornano nel suo lavoro e del rapporto, sempre aperto, tra forma e materia. Ne nasce una conversazione che attraversa alcuni dei temi centrali della sua ricerca, affidandosi alle parole dell’artista senza sovrapporre interpretazioni alla sua voce.
Interactive Art Magazine: In moving from painting to sculpture, your relationship with the figure seems to have expanded into a more physical and spatial dimension. What did you encounter in material and three-dimensional space that transformed the way you think about the figure?
Leiko Ikemura: This development is kind of a natural tendency. I have always been interested in the emotional tension between humans.
The creation of space is sensitive and sensual. The physical presence is in dialogue with a non-physical sphere.
I.A.M.: In your work, the figure seems to have gradually freed itself from the obligation to represent someone or something. What becomes possible when a figure no longer needs to be traced back to a specific subject?
L.M.: The figure could be our most essential motif, mirroring ourselves and also observing the nature of humanity.
I focus more and more on how this existential situation reduces the narrative or representational character.
I.A.M.: Your journey between Japan and the West has not resulted in a simple fusion of two traditions. How does an artist’s way of seeing change when moving between different cultures, until they begin to operate together—often unconsciously—within one’s perception?
L.M.: The cultural background is not the first motivation to investigate the artistic position for me, though I am aware of layers of differences due to it.
We are individually different yet share similar conditions in feelings and thoughts, and to explore this kind beyond nationality.
It is yet inspiring to explore discrepancies between cultural differences.
As you say, my art is not about the simple fusion of them but more about the unknown possibility of creativity.
I.A.M.: Your hybrid figures do not seem to be constructed by simply combining different elements, but rather through an organic transformation of form. When did you begin to feel that the human, the animal, and nature could inhabit the same figure without needing to be distinguished from one another?
L.M.: In my work, the creation of beings is not the technical or the conceptual result. It is more about the real feeling of being connected to the animals or plants, so they are not objects to treat in distance. They are part of me; humans should not be considered the top of the evolutionary idea.
I.A.M.: In your work, references to the archaic never appear as quotations. It is as though certain forms were resurfacing from a memory far older than the image itself. From what depth of memory do you think these forms emerge—the forms we continue to recognize even when we no longer know where they come from?
L.M.:The investigation of unconsciousness is the base to reach this state. The archaic is not the memory; this is now.
You can set up the time immediately in different fluidities and stop the velocity. This is our freedom to be free of mathematical time units.
I.A.M.: In your sculptures, emptiness seems to participate in the construction of the figure as much as the material itself. How much of the work, for you, is born from what you choose not to shape?
L.M.: It is not about the emptiness; the void is philosophical, especially the concept of „mu“ 無 in Japanese philosophy.
This is nothing and all at the same time, and this principle is the essence of my art.
It is also practical process in creating the figures. The origin of this is a vase as a elemental body concept.
I.A.M.: Your surfaces often seem to hold a delicate sense of temporality, while sculpture carries with it the idea of endurance. Are you interested in the possibility that a work might simultaneously convey a sense of permanence and the feeling of being on the verge of transformation?
L.M.: Yes it is both fragile and consistent, enduring over time.
I accept traces of exploring forms and layers of reflections during working. This is never ending, causes sensation of unperfect. My interest is to deal with uncertainty and be open to the transformation no matter what happens.
I.A.M.: The female and child figures that recur throughout your work do not seem to belong to a specific narrative. What does this indeterminacy allow you to explore that the construction of a clearly defined character would not?
L.M.: Cleary defind characters tend to be rigid and have certain meanings which do not inspire me.
The figuration I treat is focused mainly in finding another way to create not yet formed creatures. They are beyond genders, obtaining both female and male characters. Yet I see a lot of pisdibilities to explore the females especially not as object.
I.A.M.: Your work calls for a gaze that does not end with immediate recognition. How important is it to you that a work continues to change through the gaze of the person looking at it?
L.M.: It makes me curious whether viewers would take more time to perceive. It is important how the encounter happens between the work and the person, not only the gaze but also with entire sences.
I.A.M.: Looking back at your work today, what possibility of the figure do you feel you have not yet explored fully?
L.M.: Maybe about more spacious approach.
I also would like to explore another material more luminous and lighter.
About the gravitation, what can I do sculpturally being free of it.
Thank you very much for your time and for sharing these reflections with us.
Efthalia Rentetzi
