Ayako Rokkaku

Ayako Rokkaku (b. 1982 in Chiba, Japan) lives and works between Berlin, Porto, and Tokyo. Her artistic process involves an instinctive and performative approach, as she uses her bare hands to apply acrylic paint, translating the motion of her body onto the canvas. True to her distinctive technique, she moulds figures with the tips of her fingers, whether on canvas, through glass, or in bronze. 

Rokkaku’s visual language seamlessly shifts between elusive abstract formations and figurative elements, drawing inspiration from the kawaii culture (Japanese for cute) and capturing the boundless imagination of a child. Rokkaku is known for her colourful canvases populated by imaginary landscapes and fantastical characters. There is an ebullience, an undeniable charm, to her paintings, a lightness of being that comes into focus through the artist’s technique. The absence of any prior design or drawing for the realization of her works means that the process of bringing these paintings to life is a performative one.

Rokkaku has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at The Long Museum, Shanghai, China (2023); the Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan (2020); Museum Jan van der Togt, Amstelveen, Netherlands (2019); Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia (2012); and Kunsthal, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2011). In 2015, she exhibited at the Swatch Art Pavilion during the 56th Venice Biennale. Her works can be found in the collections of Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Slovakia; Voorlinden Museum, Netherlands; Gunma Museum of Art, Japan; Sehwa Museum of Art / Sehwa Art and Culture Foundation, South Korea; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Karuizawa, Japan, among others.