Spirits Among Us: Yōkai Paintings by Minako Ota 

About:

This exhibition presents 25 yōkai works created by Minako Ota. Yōkai painting is an important genre in Japanese art with a long history. From Heian-period tales and medieval picture scrolls to Edo-period ukiyo-e, people have visualized, depicted and passed down stories of unseen beings.

What, then, are yōkai? They are not simply “frightening monsters.” While their nature varies widely, one key difference from Western monsters is that yōkai are not fundamentally evil beings to be defeated, but rather exist alongside humans, more like neighbors. They embody imagination in the face of the unexplainable, reverence for nature and the emotions that dwell within the human mind. Presences in the darkness, anxieties about illness and disaster, satire and humor directed at society, yōkai give form to the invisible.

In the Edo period, yōkai became closely tied to entertainment and publishing culture, appearing in illustrated books, kibyoshi and ukiyo-e prints in diverse forms. They were both objects of fear and figures of humor and familiarity, gradually blending into everyday life.

Yōkai culture is not merely a thing of the past. Its imaginative power continues to evolve in contemporary manga, anime and games. In this sense, yōkai can be seen as a mirror reflecting Japanese perceptions of the world, nature and the unseen.

In this body of work, I reinterpret yōkai through my own contemporary sensibility while drawing on traditional styles. The accompanying texts for each piece introduce the background and origins of the individual yōkai.

I hope that this exhibition, “Spirits Among Us,” beginning with “Hyakki Yagyo” (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons), resonates with the viewer’s imagination and gives rise to new stories.

-Minako Ota, May 2026