Leiko Ikemura receives the Persons of Cultural Merit Award

21 October 2025

Lisson Gallery is pleased to announce that artist Leiko Ikemura has been selected as a recipient of Japan’s Persons of Cultural Merit Award.

Since the 1980s, Leiko Ikemura has explored themes of transition, cross-culturalism, collective responsibility, and sexuality, emancipating the feminine body from its position in history and mainstream contemporary culture by challenging artistic conventions and disrupting social norms. The internationally recognized artist seamlessly shifts between luminous, otherworldly and often monumental oil paintings, introspective drawings and watercolours, glazed terracotta sculptures, glass and ceramics.

Find out more via Bijutsu Techo.

Image: Leiko Ikemura in her studio. Photo by Astrid Piethan.