Yōkai – In-Between Beings of the Japanese Imagination

Yōkai are spiritual beings of Japanese folk culture – sometimes playful, sometimes dark, often inexplicable. They embody that which escapes logic: presences existing between nature and fantasy, between belief, memory, and emotion.

In Japanese animism, it is believed that even stones, trees, or everyday objects possess a soul. Some yōkai appear in animal or human form, others arise from old, worn objects that, through time and meaning, have been imbued with life.

The five artists in this exhibition each approach the phenomenon of yōkai in their own way. Their works move between past and present, between the visible and the invisible, between reality and imagination.

On view are paintings, wooden sculptures, drawings, ceramic objects, and paper works in editions – as diverse as the yōkai themselves.

These works are humorous, surreal, sometimes unsettling – and they invite us to question our habitual ways of perception. Perhaps they also reflect our own fears, dreams, or the childlike imagination deeply rooted within us.

Step into another world – at the threshold between the visible and the hidden.