Ikeda was born on Yoron Island, off the coast of Japan, in 1953, and moved to United States in the late 1970s. In the ’80s he came to Boulder to study at the University of Colorado, where he earned both his BFA and his MFA. In 1988, while living in Los Angeles, he had his Denver premiere at the Art Department, one of the true pioneers in establishing the art district on Santa Fe Drive. At Ikeda’s debut, Dianne Vanderlip, founder and former head curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Denver Art Museum, purchased one of his paintings for the museum and got a couple for herself. Cydney Payton and Robin Rule, then partners in the Payton-Rule Gallery, were also there, and they urged Ikeda to move to Denver, since the cost of living was so much lower than in Los Angeles. Ikeda took the bait and relocated here permanently in 1990.
It’s not surprising to find obvious references to nature in Ikeda’s idiosyncratic abstract style. “I see my paintings as vertical landscapes,” he explains, pointing out that he always refers to the ocean, the land and the sky at the top. The result is dense and complicated compositions filled to the brim with awkward shapes and painterly flourishes that seem very un-Japanese, though the concept of stacking the elements in a vertical ladder is not unlike the approach taken in traditional Japanese scroll painting. Another reference to his birthplace is Ikeda’s use of the four symbolic elements of Japanese aesthetics: flowers, birds, the wind and the moon.
Education:
1987 M.F.A. Painting – University of Colorado, Boulder
1986 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine
1985 B.F.A. – University of Colorado, Boulder
1978-81 San Joaquin Delta College, Stockton, CA
Ikeda has shown his work in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Germany, Japan and Denmark.
Selected One-person shows:
William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO
DIA Art Gallery, Denver International Airport
Lone Tree Arts Center, Lone Tree, CO.
Van Straaten Gallery, Denver
Lanning Gallery, Sedona, AZ
Platte Forum, Denver, CO
The Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder
Sandy Carson Gallery, Denver, CO
Sangre de Cristo, Pueblo, CO
Aki-wo Omou – Bingataya, Tokyo, Japan
Brüggemann Contemporary
The Kiang Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia
The Wichita Center for the Arts, Wichita, Kansas
Mackey Gallery
Payton-Rule Gallery, Denver
Alan Short Gallery, Stockton, CA
Selected Collections:
Denver Art Museum
Qwest Communications Inc, Denver
Sabichira-kan, Yoron, Japan
Front Range Community College, Westminster
Saks Fifth Avenue, New York
Joël. Atlanta. Georgia
Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center
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