Aiko

AIKO was born and raised in Tokyo and moved to New York in the mid-1990s. She worked as an apprentice in Takashi Murakami's Brooklyn studio through the late 1990s, directing a documentary on him, and took an MFA in Media Studies at the New School. In the early 2000s she was one of the three founding members of the collective FAILE, and since 2006 she has worked independently.

Her work brings two traditions into the same picture. From Japan she takes ukiyo-e — the woodblock print's flattened space, its decorative confidence and its long tradition of images of women — and from New York she takes the stencil, the spray can and the wall. The results are layered stencil paintings in high, sweet colour: female figures, cats, flowers, cherry blossom, hearts, rendered with the graphic economy of print and the immediacy of aerosol.

The recurring rabbit motif she made in 2005 has become the figure most associated with her, and she describes it as standing for love, peace, independence and freedom. That register — openly affectionate, unembarrassed by prettiness — is unusual in street art and is doing deliberate work. Ukiyo-e images of women were made by men for men; Aiko's are made by a woman, in public space, at mural scale, and the pleasure in them is her own.

She works across walls, canvas, print and installation, and has painted murals at the Wynwood Walls in Miami, the Urban Nation Museum in Berlin, the STRAAT Museum in Amsterdam, the World Trade Center in New York, Pow Wow Hawaii and the Nuart Festival in Norway.

Her solo exhibitions include Lady Go! at the Shizuoka City Tokaido Hiroshige Museum of Art in Japan in 2018, and shows in New York, Los Angeles, London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Brighton and Shanghai. She has been included in City As Studio at the K11 Art Foundation in Hong Kong, Beyond the Streets at the Saatchi Gallery, Edo Pop at Japan Society, the Urban Superstar Show at MADRE in Naples and the Animamix Biennale in Shanghai and Beijing.

SELECTED CV

Born in Tokyo, Japan

Lives and works in New York, NY, USA

Education and Training

MFA, Media Studies, The New School University, New York, NY, USA

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2018 AIKO, Jan Arnold Gallery, Vienna, Austria

2015 Edo City Girl, Ink_d Gallery, Brighton, United Kingdom

2014 Sweetheart, The Outsiders Gallery, Newcastle, United Kingdom

2014 AIKO's Bunny Party, Gallery Brooklyn, New York, NY, USA

2012 After a Long Time, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA

2011 Unstoppable Waves, Pure Evil Gallery, London, United Kingdom

2011 Unstoppable Waves, Andenken Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands

2010 Here's Fun for Everyone, Andrew James Art, Shanghai, China

2009 Love Monster, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2008 Shut Up and Look, Brooklynite Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, USA

Museum and Institutional Exhibitions

2023 City As Studio, K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong

2023 Beyond the Streets, Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom

2018 Lady Go! (solo), Shizuoka City Tokaido Hiroshige Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan

2018 A Colossal World: Japanese Artists and New York, 1950s–Present, White Box, New York, NY, USA

2013 Edo Pop, Japan Society, New York, NY, USA

2009 Urban Superstar Show, MADRE Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples, Italy

Biennials, Triennials and Art Fairs

2009 Animamix Biennale, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China, and Today Art Museum, Beijing, China

Selected Public Commissions and Projects

2023 Mural, STRAAT Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

2021 Mural, Urban Nation Museum, Berlin, Germany

2021 Mural, The Wynwood Walls, Miami, FL, USA

2020 Top of the World: Love Letter for NYC, World Trade Center, New York, NY, USA

2019 Mural, Levi's Harajuku flagship store, Tokyo, Japan

2015 Coney Art Walls, Brooklyn, NY, USA

2014 Pow Wow Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA

2013 Nuart Festival, Stavanger, Norway

Selected Publications and Monographs

2020 AIKO Book, Beyond the Streets