“Crib Notes” is a quick-read dossier focused on the artists who ranked on our best-sellers list for ultra-contemporary art in our 2024 Mid-Year Intelligence Report.
Ayako Rokkaku’s paintings are a masterful blend of the “kawaii” figures common in Japanese pop culture and the European abstraction she first encountered in textbooks. She captures a sense of intimacy between artist and canvas by applying her paint with her fingers. (It was only recently that Rokkaku began to wear gloves during the process, to protect herself from any harmful toxins.)
Unlike many of today’s rising stars, Rokkaku is entirely self-taught. Her style has been praised for its embrace of childlike abandon and joy, as well as for its complex combination of abstraction and figuration. In 2001 the 19-year-old Rokkaku began to paint in private at home, as well as in public parks where passersby would occasionally buy her works or commission portraits of their dogs. Within two years she had won her first award at the Geisai art fair, and within six years she was having international solo shows.
The freedom with which she approaches her paintings has also allowed her to branch out from traditional art materials: she is known to print directly onto cardboard. Rokkaku has also found eager collectors for her series of paintings made directly onto old Louis Vuitton suitcases. She does not limit herself to one medium, and has been known to create ceramics, bronze sculptures, glass artworks and live performances in addition to her popular paintings and screenprints.
Rokkaku ranked ninth in a roundup of the “Most-Bankable” ultra-contemporary artists (those born after 1974) in the Artnet Intelligence Report: Mid-Year Review 2024. Of the 105 lots of Rokkaku’s work available at auction between January and June, 80 works sold, giving the artist a 76% sell-through rate along with $3.5 million in total sales.
Ayako Rokkaku, Untitled (2016). Courtesy of Gallery Delaive.
Key details: Born in Tokyo, 1982. Based in Berlin, Amsterdam, Porto, and Tokyo.
Galleries representing: Gallery Delaive, Amsterdam. Rokkaku’s first solo show at the gallery came in 2008, but in the next two years Delaive collaborated on exhibitions with Galerie Moderne in Silkeborg, Denmark; Galerie Teo in Tokyo, Japan; Galerie Wild in Frankfurt, Germany; and Juliana Gallery in Seoul, Korea. From that point onwards, Gallery Delaive has been a collaborator on the majority of the artist’s solo shows across the world. She has had five exhibitions at Gallery Delaive since 2008, and her second solo, 2010’s “About Us,” later toured to Vacant in Tokyo. In 2022 Rokkaku had two exhibitions held at Delaive, “Burrow & Pop Up” and “Works from 2006-2022.”
Breakout Moment: In 2003, Rokkaku won the Scout Prize at Geisai #4—the fourth edition of the fair created by Takashi Murakami, which has run twice a year in Tokyo since 2001. Unlike at other major fairs, where dealers rent booths to show work by artists in their stable, at Geisai artists represent themselves, and Rokkaku presented a selection of vibrant work made on cardboard. This was the first of Rokkaku’s awards—not bad for a newcomer who had started painting just two years earlier.
Ayako Rokkaku, Untitled (2018). Courtesy of Seoul Auction.
Auction record: At Tokyo’s SBI Art Auction Co. on July 16, 2022, Rokkaku’s Untitled (2017) sold for ¥184 million ($1.3 million). The 5-foot-wide canvas features Rokkaku’s signature female figures, who are scowling with a fist raised against a semi-floral abstracted background dominated by pink tones.
Key Quote: “When I first started painting in my studio, I was painting just for myself. But when people tell me how happy they feel when they hang my paintings in their homes, it makes me feel happier. I want to share this positive energy, and paintings can just be a form of the existence of energy.” (Artnet News, 2022)