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 gr ...

ist based in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. She is known for her ability to combine

western art The art of Europe, also known as 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 bet ...

movements and

eastern Eastern or Easterns may refer to: Transportation Airlines *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 192 ...

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

bricolage In the arts, ''bricolage'' (French language, 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 t ...

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. The holes allow the pigment to reach only some parts of the surface creatin ...

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 in a "flood stroke" ...

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

Chinatown Chinatown ( zh, t=唐人街) is the catch-all name for 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, Asia, Africa, O ...

and

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and Neighborhoods in New York City, neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway (Manhattan), ...

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 advertis ...

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. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

and

girl A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. While the term ''girl'' has other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionary.com, "Girl"'' Retrieved January 2, 2008. '' daughter'' or '' girlfriend'' regardless of age ...

s, 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 (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial media (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between High art, high and low arts. His wo ...

'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 SAS, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French 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 products, ...

. 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 pasted 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 ep ...

for his film '' Exit Through the Gift Shop''. 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, officially the Stavanger Municipality, is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the third largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the ...

, 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 Cha ...

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 silhouett ...

s, women, angels,

Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano located on the Japanese island of Honshu, with a summit elevation of . It is the highest mountain in Japan, the second-highest volcano on any Asian island (after Mount Kerinci on the Indonesian island of Sumatra), a ...

, butterflies, flowers and a rabbit holding an

aerosol paint Spray paint (formally aerosol paint) is paint that comes in a sealed, pressurized can and is released in an aerosol spray when a valve button is depressed. The propellant is what the container of pressurized gas is called. When the pressure hold ...

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

floral Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants (Flowering plant, angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls in ...

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 i ...

and Os Gemeos.

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 Artists from Tokyo Women graffiti artists Japanese muralists