Lady Aiko might just be a pin-up herself. The artist launched her solo career in 2006 with works on canvas that incorporate collage, stenciling, brushwork, spray paint, and serigraphs. This bricolage technique perfectly suits AIKO’s eclectic practice of voracious mash-up of Japanese and American pop culture, soft-corn porn and erotic art.

I believe that to make great art you need to take time and risk
- Lady Aiko

“I love looking at [pin-ups], they’re so glamorous,” Aiko tells me when I ask her about her love for pin-ups. “The body curves, poses and classy costumes are influencing my art and myself too.”

Aiko was born and raised in the center area of Toyko. This concrete jungle, the noise, the hustle and bustle of the city was her playground and the cities’ lights and noise were her toys. The artist admits she, “spent most of her play time creating something fun and entertaining for family and friends.” These creative roots and philosophies still influence her work today.

Japan’s recent disaster has of course struck a poignant chord with the artist. She has family there. I mean Japan is her first home. This realization paired with current world affairs like  the turmoil in Libya, Egypt, Syria definitely bothers her. But instead of falling into depression Aiko is throwing herself into her art as a healing process in dire times.

“My family and friends are in Tokyo also relative lives in Fukushima where the nuclear plants has been troubled,” Aiko tells me. “It is horrible, but we know that this is time for us to move forward and build better future.”

“Our art expresses our own personal issue s and how it affects others is not our first intention.  But definitely my heart has been shaken by all devastating news, and that made me work on good positive art,” she later explains.

Aiko was born in Tokyo, but has been living in New York since the mid 90’s. It was in New York in the late 90’s where Aiko was introduced to graffiti and street art which has been undoubtedly a massive influence on her work. It was in New York and at this time she also formed artist collective FAILE, which helped fuel the current wave of global contemporary street art with spontaneous wheat pastings and stenciling in numerous world capitals.

“I might have been working on different type of art form if I didn’t move to US,” she admits. “It is illegal, but I was so fascinated by idea free expression for everyone and reaching out to random people… That whole experience is  a large influence of my art career and I appreciate those adventurous old days very much.”

Using techniques of collaging, stenciling and screen printing Aiko tells visually unique stories of love and romance, positive energy and fantasy world. These depictions of globalized female sexuality populate her vibrant works whether it be canvas or the a brick wall in Soho.

“When I create a piece, it’s like I’m directing casts and props on the stage to build the scene, then add extra elements and colors like composing music to enhance the stories,” Aiko tells me about her process.

While a Media Studies student at New School University in New York, she hid her art in plain sight by wheatpasting images throughout the city. It was then that she developed a signature synthesis of commercial graphics, sexual imagery, and the vocabularies of seduction and fantasy found in print, film, and electronic media. Using stencils can be an exhausting process. But it is the process that attracts the artist most.

“I enjoy cutting stencils and finding my own shapes,” It is time consuming and pains, but it is my favorite part and gets me so excited to see the final result.”

Between the spray paint fumes and the accidental xacto cuts, stenciling can be more dangerous than her bright art will let on. But the risk is needed according to Aiko.

“I believe that to make great art you need to take time and risk- like a mother takes time and risk for giving birth, similar idea.”

Read more from our interview with Lady Aiko in our Spring Issue of Art Nouveau. Click here to purchase a copy.

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