Aiko Nakagawa known as Lady Aiko or AIKO is a Japanese street artist based in Brooklyn, New York.
Described as “joyfully subversive” her work is heavily inspired by Japanese woodblock printing, a technique which she combines with Western art movements to explore themes of Japanese identity, femininity and inequality.
Having apprenticed with Takashi Murakami at his studio she went on to become renowned for her large-scale mural work and her innovative use of traditional imagery and stencil-based graffiti. Aiko went on to be involved in a number of high-profile collaborations; in the 1990s she co-founded the artistic collective ‘FAILE’, before collaborating with Banksy for his film ‘Exit through the gift shop’, and eventually being part of a select group of artists to design scarves for Louis Vuitton in 2013.
She has exhibited worldwide and was the first female artist to be invited to paint New York City’s Bowery wall, for which she created the mural ‘Here’s fun for everyone’.