Aiko Nakagawa (born 1975), known as Lady Aiko or AIKO, is a Japanese

street art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...

ist based in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. She is known for her ability to combine

western art The art of Europe, or Western art, encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile Upper Paleolithic rock and cave painting and petroglyph art and was characteristic of the period between the Paleol ...

movements and

eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

technical, artistic skills, as well as for her large-scale works installed in cities including Rome, Italy, Shanghai, China and Brooklyn, New York. Aiko's work is inspired by 18th-century

Japanese woodblock printing Woodblock printing in Japan (, ''mokuhanga'') is a technique best known for its use in the ''ukiyo-e'' artistic genre of single sheets, but it was also used for printing books in the same period. Widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period (160 ...

and has been described as "joyfully, subversively feminine." Her artwork on canvas uses a

bricolage In the arts, ''bricolage'' ( French for "DIY" or "do-it-yourself projects") is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work constructed using mixed media. The term ''bricolage'' ...

technique, incorporating spray paint,

stencil Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface, by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object, to create a pattern or image on a surface, by allowing the pigment to reach ...

ing, brushwork, collage, and

serigraph Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...

s. She is inspired by New York neighborhoods and advertising, drawing from imagery from

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

and

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...

in the form of old signs,

billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

s, and

neon sign In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in Decem ...

s. Aiko is heavily inspired by her Japanese identity, and experiences as a Japanese woman. Through her graffiti and street art, she gives visibility and representation to

women A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...

and

girls A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. When a girl becomes an adult, she is accurately described as a ''woman''. However, the term ''girl'' is also used for other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionary ...

, as well as addressing gender inequality and other issues they may face in the world. Aiko enjoys creating art that is beautiful, full of love, and can be shared with anyone. The imagery in her work is often linked to romance, sexuality, and promiscuity while also appreciating and praising the female form. Aiko fully embraces the process of creating her work, and thrives off of the freedom, spontaneity, and challenges that come with using the street as your canvas and gallery space. The focus on process is seen in her work through the prominent layering of colors and stenciled shapes, reminiscent of screen printing or wood block prints that come together to create her large female figures.

Biography

Aiko Nakagawa was born in 1975 and raised in the central area of Tokyo. She attended an all-girl high school. While she was in college in Tokyo, she created a

pirate television A pirate television station is a broadcast television station that operates without a broadcast license. Like its counterpart pirate radio, the term pirate TV lacks a specific universal interpretation. It implies a form of broadcasting that is u ...

station that broadcast her own music videos and short films. The broadcast could be picked up within a three-kilometer radius and generated some local press coverage before the government sent her a letter ordering her to desist. In the mid-1990s, she moved to New York City where she apprenticed in artist

Takashi Murakami is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts media (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts as well as co ae ...

's Brooklyn studio. Her and Muramaki's work are similar by their incorporation of Japanese culture, and have even worked with high-end fashion designer,

Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Malletier, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French high-end Luxury goods, luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton (designer), Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its produc ...

. She studied media studies at the

New School University The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

and

wheat paste Wheat paste (also known as flour and water paste, flour paste, or simply paste) is a gel or liquid adhesive made from wheat flour or starch and water. It has been used since antiquity for various arts and crafts such as book binding, découpag ...

d naked images of herself around the city. Towards the end of the 1990s Aiko collaborated with artists Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller. The three formed the street art collective FAILE (then A-life) in 1998. Together the artists created "large format, monochromatic, screen-printed female nudes," among other work. They collective became very popular through this style which worked similarly across media from posters, to prints, to gallery works on canvas. In 2006, Lady Aiko left the collective. In 2005 she collaborated with fellow street artist

Banksy Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams ...

for his film ''

Exit Through the Gift Shop ''Exit Through the Gift Shop'' is a 2010 British documentary film directed by street artist Banksy. It tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles who, over the course of several years, filmed a host of street artists at ...

''. Aiko's work was included in the

Museum of Sex The Museum of Sex, also known as MoSex, is a sex museum located at 233 Fifth Avenue at the corner of East 27th Street in Manhattan, New York City. It opened on October 5, 2002. History Founder Daniel Gluck wanted to start a museum dedicated t ...

's erotic street art exhibition in 2012. Later that year she created the mural ''Here's Fun for Everyone'' on New York City's Bowery Wall. She was the first woman artist to be invited to paint the wall. In 2013, she attended the international street art festival Nuart in

Stavanger Stavanger (, , American English, US usually , ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the a ...

, Norway, alongside fellow female graffiti artists

Martha Cooper Martha Cooper is an American photojournalist. She worked as a staff photographer for the ''New York Post'' during the 1970s. She is best known for documenting the New York City graffiti scene of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1984, Cooper and Henry Ch ...

and Faith 47. Working on two walls of a tunnel below the Tou Scene arts centre, she created a work with stenciled representations of

silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...

s, women, angels,

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest p ...

, butterflies, flowers and a rabbit holding an

aerosol paint Aerosol paint (commonly spray paint) is paint that comes in a sealed, pressurized container and is released in an aerosol spray when a valve button is depressed. Aerosol painting is one form of spray painting; it leaves a smooth, even coat, unlike ...

can to represent female energy. The same year she designed a characteristic

floral A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism ...

and feminine scarf for luxury brand

alongside other street artists

Retna RETNA (born Marquis Lewis 1979) is a contemporary artist, primarily recognized for graffiti art. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and started his career in the early 1990s. He developed a distinctive constructed script which is ...

and

Os Gemeos OSGEMEOS (also known as Os Gemeos or Os Gêmeos, Portuguese for ''The Twins'') are identical twin street artists Otavio Pandolfo and Gustavo Pandolfo (born 1974). They started painting graffiti in 1987 and their work appears on streets and in gall ...

Works

* 2008 ''Bunny - Kid Robot'', Limited Edition Vinyl Figure * 2008 ''Lady Kill'' and ''Vandarismo'', print release with POW, London * 2008 ''Shut Up and Look'', exhibition at Brooklynite Gallery, Brooklyn, NY * 2009 ''Love Monster'', exhibition at Joshua Liner Gallery, Chealsea, NY * 2010 ''The Standard Stairwell Project'' at the Standard, NY and Hollywood LA * 2010 ''Here's Fun For Everyone'', exhibition at Andrew James Art, Shanghai, China * 2011 ''Lady Butterfly'', limited edition sculpture / black and silver * 2011 ''Unstoppable Waves'', exhibition at Andenken Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands * 2011 ''Unstoppable Waves London'', exhibition at PURE EVIL Gallery, London * 2011 ''Camouflage Blue'' * 2012 ''After a Long Time'', exhibition at Merry Karnowsky Gallery, LA * 2012 ''Lady Butterfly'', limited edition sculpture / cCherry * 2012 ''The Bowery Wall'', New York CIty * 2013 ''Foulards d’Artistes'', AIKO x Louis Vuitton * 2013 ''Lady Butterfly'', limited edition sculpture / pearl white * 2014 ''AIOK x ISETAN'', window display project, ISETAN Tokyo * 2014 ''AIKO's Bunny Party'' at Gallery Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY * 2014 ''Sweetheart'', at The Outsiders Gallery, Newcastle, UK * 2015 ''Lady Butterfly'', limited edition sculpture / pink * 2015 ''Edo City Girl'', at Ink_d Gallery, Brighton, UK

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aiko, Lady 1975 births Japanese artists Japanese graffiti artists Japanese women artists Living people People from Tokyo Women graffiti artists Women muralists