Galerie Karsten Greve is delighted to present Leiko Ikemura a.ï.r.e in Cologne, a solo exhibition to coincide with the 2021 edition of Art Cologne. The collaboration between Leiko Ikemura and Galerie Karsten Greve began in 1987 with a solo show in the gallery’s former Cologne exhibition space in Wallrafplatz. Since then, this exceptional artist’s distinctive oeuvre which features painting, sculpture, drawing as well as photography, has consistently been presented at all gallery locations – Cologne, Paris, formerly Milan, and, since 1999, St. Moritz – in twenty solo exhibitions to date and regular accrochages.
The current exhibition marks a new phase in Leiko Ikemura’s artistic work. Around twenty paintings from the past eight years, ten watercolors created in 2018, and photographic works from 2020 are on display. The focus of the exhibition, both in form and content, is on overcoming boundaries: “What I’m trying to do now,” says the artist, “is to cross the border, to go into the picture, into the other world….” Leiko Ikemura’s characteristic horizon paintings and cosmic landscapes, which run like a leitmotif through her work, are dissolved in the latest works, transforming into a new form of abstraction, opening up a freedom of imagination for the observer thanks to their depth.