Akira Ikezoe greets me at his studio, clad in a long-sleeve t-shirt designed by the Cevallos Brothers, who, like him, were recently highlighted in the Greater New York exhibition at MoMA PS1. This is just one of many major exhibitions and international biennials Ikezoe has been involved with over recent years, such as the Sharjah Biennial last year and this year’s Whitney Biennial. Consequently, his studio is minimalist, with only a few paintings in progress.
Offering tea, Ikezoe and I reminisce about our first encounter in 2023 at the Rehearsal Art Book Fair, co-organized by Bungee Space and Accent Sisters. There, he introduced me to his Baby Recipes series (2022), which humorously turns babies’ body parts into ingredients in illustrated, comic-style cooking guides. Curious about the inspiration, I ask him where the idea originated.
“Frustrations around raising my three-year-old son,” he candidly replies.
When asked if his wife was worried upon seeing the artwork, he responds, “No, she was enjoying them. She understood what I was feeling.”
We share a laugh. It’s this kind of dark humor that initially drew me to his work, and it continues to permeate his art, which explores themes of energy systems, resource extraction, and the complex interplay between natural and industrial cycles. Ikezoe’s openness about macabre topics is disarming, and his art, though seemingly light-hearted, offers a keen observation of the environmental and man-made crises we face. Humor, in his hands, becomes a subtle tool for satire.
Ikezoe’s intricately detailed oil paintings, which launched him to fame, depict anthropomorphic animals like frogs, bears, raccoons, and monkeys in surreal industrial and labor scenarios. His art often utilizes flowcharts and blueprints, typically overlooked as art materials. In his Sharjah exhibit, he juxtaposed diagrams from nuclear power plants with animals native to those ecosystems, imagining bears running Chernobyl and raccoons at Three Mile Island. Originally, his works featured naked humans, but due to Sharjah’s restrictions on nudity, he transitioned to animals, a change that resonated with him.
“I love frogs,” Ikezoe remarks. “My grandparents were farmers, and their noisy rice fields provided a perfect habitat for frogs.”
Left: Watercolor sketches in Akira Ikezoe’s studio; right: paintings leaning on and attached to the wall in Akira Ikezoe’s studio
Ikezoe’s deep understanding of animals complements his insight into energy infrastructures. This becomes evident as we discuss nuclear power and the persistent issue of toxic waste, particularly after disasters like the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi incident, which occurred shortly after he relocated to New York in late 2010.
“I began contemplating how civilization and nature are in constant conflict,” he says. “Our cultural and natural aspects often contradict each other. With oil supply instability due to war, countries are building more nuclear power plants.” Acknowledging the inevitability of this trend due to global energy demands, Ikezoe adds, “Simply rejecting nuclear power seems impossible now. We need alternatives. Hopefully, technological advancements will provide solutions.”
Ikezoe’s artwork fundamentally addresses the repercussions of prioritizing short-term economic gains over community welfare and the enduring issues of nuclear waste. Yet, his work also imagines fantastical, cyclical alternatives—new systems of energy and exchange.
These interests trace back to his childhood in Kochi, Japan, where his parents, fond of nature, would hunt and collect specimens, spending weekends in the mountains or by the sea. Initially aspiring to become a zoologist, Ikezoe shifted his focus to art during his teenage years, eventually studying at Tama Art University in Tokyo. This early interest in nature means he draws more inspiration from science magazines, documentaries, and science fiction films than from traditional art history.
He gives me a tour of a painting currently underway.
“This blue painting is about a geothermal energy plant for a greening project in the Sahara Desert. Heat from a volcano generates steam in the energy plant —” he explains, but then accidentally brushes the painting, causing us to laugh as he wipes the gray mark onto the wall.
“The electricity powers streetlights that attract insects. I’ll paint chameleons eating those insects,” he continues. “Then camels emerge from the volcano smoke, their humps open, and people place the chameleons inside. The camels venture into the desert and die. From their corpses, plants sprout, greening the desert.”
We laugh again. The charm of Ikezoe’s work lies in the whimsical yet logical progression of his imagery, where unexpected transformations seem perfectly natural. It’s so straightforward, even a child could unravel it.
“My studio is my playground,” he says. “When adults visit, I have to explain what I’m creating in the sandbox. My work is purely for my entertainment, and conveying its importance can be challenging.”
I chuckle at the thought, as Ikezoe’s ideas seem anything but trivial. His paintings, despite their playful nature, are deeply invested in the fate of humanity.
Our conversation shifts to aquaponics and solar energy.
“Solar panels are a big issue in Japan right now,” he explains, “because companies are clearing forests to install them. It’s contradictory. They miss the true purpose of solar panels. I wanted to satirize that in this red painting.” He points to a work in progress, featuring flat areas on a maroon background, soon to host whimsical figures on massage chairs in a larger circulatory system.
Next to it is a piece from Ikezoe’s Chart of Darkness series (2025), which was showcased in Greater New York. This series illustrates his associative thinking by pairing animals and objects that blur the lines between nature and culture, scientific and spiritual, clean and hazardous, human and nonhuman.
“I’m crafting narratives between things with similar visual traits, like bananas and crescent moons,” he says. “When I first arrived in New York, my limited English made it hard to express my artistic vision. I started categorizing items by shape. Then I realized this concept already exists in Japanese folklore—people worshipping a rock shaped like a genital organ as a fertility symbol, for example. There’s no scientific link, but stories arise from visual similarities. I thought, ‘This is the origin of folklore.’ I wanted to create a modern version of that.”
Ikezoe’s modern myths function like guides for understanding the world without needing words. Free from specific cultural markers, they achieve universality. Their imaginative logic is akin to finding shapes in clouds, a childhood pastime.
Curious, I ask if he discusses his paintings with his son.
“He grasps them instantly,” Ikezoe says. He adds that they often exchange ideas, and his son’s insights sometimes appear in his artwork.
Beyond humor and visual appeal, Ikezoe’s paintings highlight the enduring life of materials we prefer to overlook—especially those that defy easy disposal. They connect man-made and ecological systems, where the resulting dialogue is as likely to reveal a hard truth as a visual pun. Death and decay, rebirth and recycling, are presented neutrally as part of continuous transformation. There are no main characters in these worlds, no hierarchy. The system itself tells the story.
Left: Akira Ikezoe’s laptop, featuring a diagram; right: preparatory drawings of objects for his paintings
Talking with Ikezoe, I realize how adulthood often limits our associative thinking. As we grow older, we interpret the world more literally, losing the connective logic that Ikezoe skillfully nurtures. Fully embracing this way of thinking might help us envision speculative futures and find unconventional solutions to today’s challenges—many of which Ikezoe’s art subtly addresses. It might also reveal our deep entanglement within these systems.
Or it could lead us to a realm where moles consume Chinese food within a closed power grid. Thanks to Ikezoe, we can visualize it: the scene vividly displayed on the expansive walls of the 2026 Whitney Biennial.
