3424 - LEIKO IKEMURA

LEIKO IKEMURA (Tsu, 1951–lives and works in Berlin, among other places) Untitled. 1984. Oil on canvas. 180 × 200 cm. Certificate: Leiko Ikemura & Tony Wuethrich Galerie (gallery certificate), Basel, June 19, 2025. Provenance: - Artist’s studio. - Tony Gerber Galerie, Bern. - Tony Wuethrich Galerie, Basel. Leiko Ikemura’s work evokes a world in which humans, animals, and plants are connected as kindred beings. Her visual language touches on something archaic: a hint of an original unity in which life has not yet been organized into fixed categories and humanity appears as part of nature. This interconnectedness shapes Ikemura’s artistic practice. She regards the various manifestations of nature as equal. Humans and animals are not opposites, but parts of a shared whole. The archaic quality of her images does not evoke any particular historical period or culture. Rather, the central idea is a common foundation for all life. A related notion also resonates in the pictorial world of Franz Marc and the “Blauer Reiter” circle, in which animals appear as independent beings possessing an inner reality of their own. Ikemura also questions the boundaries that language and patterns of thought draw between things. Concepts create order, separate, and define. Her art, by contrast, leaves open the possibility that reality is less clearly divided than we perceive it to be. Kinship does not mean sameness. Differences between humans and animals remain, without one being placed above the other. Her works suggest that closeness need not erase difference. At their core are the relationships between living beings and what connects them beyond their differences. * The full tax is charged on this item marked *; that is, VAT is charged on the total amount but will be refunded to purchasers who provide a validly stamped export declaration.