Clint Eastwood | "Smoking Gun" | 2021 | Pop Art | Limited Edition Print

Leikny is an Norwegian Pop Art artist, under the pseudonym Leikny. Leikny has been living and working in the capital of Norway, Oslo. Leikny is a Norwegian girl name with origins in the Old Norse words leikr, meaning "play", and nýr, meaning "new" or "young". Leikný was the Old Norse form of the name. Leikny often paints celebrities and icons such as Clint Eastwood, Elvis Presley, Gandhi, Jayne Mansfield, David Bowie, Martin Luther King, Lennon, Hendrix, Sophia Loren, Godzilla, King Kong, Muhammed Ali, Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta… But a very important part of Leikny's work is also devoted to the Native Indians, Holocaust and other oppressed people. Leikny began drawing at a very young age, harboring a vague dream of becoming an artist. When the pandemic struck and forced the artist to live under strict lockdown measures, with movement drastically limited, Leikny's creative response unexpectedly led to the birth of a new Norwegian pop art star. Leikny strive for straightforwardness in the work, using bold swatchs of primary colors, favored realism, everyday imagery and heavy doses of irony and wit. Leikny is very aware of the past and challenge traditional boundaries between mediums and techniques, merging illustration with photography and printmaking, and bringing together objects, images, and sometimes text to make new meaning. Leiknys work invokes nostalgia. Influences are notably pop art icon Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Hamilton Edouardo Paolozzi, Peter Blake, John McHale, Lawrence Alloway, Peter Reyner Banham, Richard Smith, Jon Thompson, Pop Art artist Robert Indiana, George Brecht, Marisol (Escobar), Tom Wesselmann, Marjorie Strider, Allan D’Arcangelo, Claes Oldenberg, George Segal, James Rosenquist, Rosalyn Drexler, Korita Kent, Billy Al Bengston, Edward Kienholz, Wallace Berman, John Wesley, Jess Collins, Richard Pettibone, Mel Ramos, Edward Ruscha, Wayne Thiebaud, Joe GoodeVon Dutch Holland, Jim Eller, Anthony Berlant, Victor Debreuil Phillip Hefferton, Robert O’Dowd, James Gill, Robert Kuntz, Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Tadanori Yokoo, Mario Schifan, Tano Festa, Renato Mambor, Franco Angeli, Mimmo Rotella, Giosetta Fioroni, Mario Ceoli Enrico Baj, Cesare Tacchi, R. B. Kitaj, Peter Philips Billy Apple (Barrie Bates), Derek Boshier, Patrick Canfield David Hockney, Allen Jones and Pop Art artist Norman Toynton