“Jardin Nocturno” by Leiko Ikemura

2022 · colour · 5’ · In competition

A video projection composed entirely of close-ups from Leiko Ikemura’s dark abstract paintings transforms the stillness of night into a subtly shifting, dreamlike landscape, where shadow and light pulse in continuous motion, evoking inner worlds of creation, crisis, and renewal through immersive sound and an everevolving horizon of black and color.

The artist

Since the beginning of her career, Leiko Ikemura’s work has been deeply intertwined with her personal journey and the places that have shaped her life. Memories of her native Japan resonate alongside formative experiences in Spain and Switzerland during the 1970s and 1980s, influences that continue to inform her practice. Her lifelong process of painterly transformation unfolds in poetic landscapes where human figures and nature merge, and where amorphous forms and hybrid, mythical beings exist in states of continuous metamorphosis.

Since the early 1980s, Ikemura’s work has been presented internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Most recently, the Albertina Museum in Vienna is presenting her solo exhibition Motherscapes through April 2026. Other recent solo exhibitions (selection) include presentations at Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur (2025); Kunsthalle Emden (2024); Heredium Museum, Daejeon (2024); Museo de Arte Zapopan, Guadalajara (2023); Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin (2023); Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin (2022); CAC La Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, Valencia (2022); Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich (2021); Kunsthalle Rostock (2020); Kunstmuseum Basel (2019); The National Art Center, Tokyo (2019); Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (2016); and The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2011), among others.

Ikemura has also participated in major international group exhibitions at institutions including Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden (2023); The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (2022–23); the 9th Beijing Biennale at the National Art Museum of China (2022); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2021); Kunstmuseum Basel (2022); and numerous museums across Europe and Asia, further affirming her significant presence in contemporary art.