Uemon Ikeda (池田うえもん, Ikeda Uemon, born 1952 in Kobe) is the professional name of Tatsuo Ikeda, a Japanese artist and painter. 

 

His artistic journey began in the 70s in Tokyo with Master Takeshi Yoshino, assistant to Junji Wakebe who created the statue of Yukio Mishima. The Master advised him that if he wanted to be an artist he had to go abroad or to New York or Rome. Ikeda chose Italy.

At twenty-one he moved to Rome, his adopted city, where he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1977 with Venanzo Crocetti. The strong bond with the culture of origin remains to characterize his expressive process his expressive process. His expressive choices focus on decidedly conceptual aspects, declining in differentiated linguistic codes that oscillate from painting to architecture, from drawing to photography, from installation to "impossible theatre" up to writing.

His gaze isolates segments of urban reality, dematerializing their Western spatiality through that entirely oriental concept of "emptiness", which becomes scenic space, theatre. His "aerial architectures" are ephemeral works, which come to life through a wool and silk thread, which, expertly woven by the artist, reveals the ideal forms of architecture suspended within public places and places of cultural interest.

Since then, having blossomed with particular intensity in recent years, his temporary works have been exhibited in many symbolic settings of the Eternal City: in the external spaces of the Major Synagogue-Temple of Rome (European Day of Jewish Culture), Piazza Farnese, Piazza Trilussa ( festa de' Noantri 2012), the garden of Villa Borghese, in the Campidoglio square (Earth Day 2013) and "Aerial architecture: lines, wires, web net", welcomed in the same year in the MAXXI square on the occasion of the Contemporary Day .

In November 2018 he collaborated in the reopening of the Royal Palace in Naples by designing a path with his personal "site specific" installation that wrapped around the interior of the Royal Palace until arriving at the restored Hanging Garden curated by Anna Imponente. Numerous students from the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples collaborated in the creation of the work, all very enthusiastic about being able to help in the creation of this gigantic spider web.

He takes part in Japan Week in Venice with an evocative installation.

Confirming his dual roots, Ikeda has exhibited mainly in important galleries in Rome and Tokyo; from 1987 to today he has been present in significant international contemporary art exhibitions.

In 1991 at the collective exhibition “Simultaneity - New Directions of Japanese Contemporary Art” at Palazzo Braschi in Rome, he also exhibited in Rome at the Contemporary Art Laboratory Museum of La Sapienza University in 2000 with the solo exhibition “Acrobazia” and in 2005 with the personal exhibition “A boy who wanted to live in the rectangle” curated by Simonetta Lux and in 2017 he participated in the 102nd edition of the NIKA Exhibition at the National Arts Center in Tokyo, one of the three most important art exhibitions in Japan.

In the same year De Luca Editori d'Arte presented the monograph: UEMON IKEDA.

In 2004 he collaborated with the chair of History of Contemporary Art of the Faculty of History at the University of Rome 1 "La Sapienza" as a trainer for trainees and teacher of the various Conceptual Art lessons during the academic years.

The red thread of Ikeda is the symbol on the occasion of the National Board of Directors of the FIPE-Confcommercio Women Entrepreneurs Group held on 25 October 2021 as part of the Fair at Host Milano Fiera Milano Rho.

From 2007 to today he collaborate with the Marta Bianchi - InEvoluzionet studio.

He lives and works in Rome.