Fergus McCaffrey, St. Barth, is pleased to present an exhibition of works on paper created between 1958 and 2008 by the Japanese artist Tatsuo Ikeda. This is the artist’s first exhibition at Fergus McCaffrey.

Ikeda was born in Imari, Saga, in 1928. During World War II, he was trained as a kamikaze pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, but by good fortune was never deployed. However, his wartime experience of seeing his fellow pilots being dispatched to their deaths in the name of their divine Emperor scarred Ikeda deeply and drove him to become an antiauthoritarian artist after the war ended in 1945.

Defeat turned Japan on its head, and the immediate post-war situation can best be described as surreal. The country’s traumatized populace had suffered massively and lived undernourished in fire-bombed or atomically vaporized cities. Japan’s mortal war-time enemy, the United States, was now the country’s defender and guardian. Despite Japan’s new pacifist constitution, the same Emperor Showa who led the country’s aggressive imperialist militarism, still held the title of Emperor (although he lost his status as a living god). Ikeda strongly disagreed with the decision made by the politicians of the time to keep the Emperor in place, and expressed his negative feelings on this issue. His belief that the imperial regime should have ended in the aftermath of the Second World War was reflected in his artistic practice. Ikeda responded to the absurdity and contradictions of the situation by turning to and finding inspiration in Surrealist philosophy.

As Ikeda couldn’t afford proper art supplies, his first drawings from the early 1950s were made with pen. Works from the 1950s feature delicately rendered images of traumatized, distorted, and mutated animal and human forms often tortured by mechanical devices. Critical and satirical works targeted the post-war politicians. During 1960s, Ikeda worked on the series Oval Space, in which he captured a dually focused world view, and also Toy World, that portrayed the world as a bizarre toy-like construction. In the 1970s, Ikeda added airbrush to his repertory to produce fantastically rendered works that address Hinduism, biological forms, and sexuality. Ikeda continues his visual innovation to this day at the great age of 86.

Ikeda’s first solo exhibition was in 1954 at Yoseido Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo, and he has continued to work and exhibit actively for the last 60 years. His practice has evolved over time to include painting and sculpture; he also actively engages in theatrical works and film. Until recently, Ikeda’s work was largely unknown in the West; however, he came to broader attention in the exhibition Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012), which included his work prominently. He was also featured in the documentary film ANPO (2010), directed by Linda Hoaglund, which examined the relationship between the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, war, and art.