Japan Supernatural: Vertiginous After Staring at the Empty World Too Intensely, I Found Myself Trapped in the Realm of Lurking Ghosts and Monsters,

This limited-edition print captures the rich colour and dynamism of Takashi Murakami’s painting Japan Supernatural: Vertiginous After Staring at the Empty World Too Intensely, I Found Myself Trapped in the Realm of Lurking Ghosts and Monsters which was commissioned by the Art Gallery in 2019.

The image combines the artist’s eccentric personal vision with his passion for the folklore and narratives of Japan’s Edo period (1603–1868), bringing ghosts, monsters and other supernatural beings (yōkai) of the Edo floating world (ukiyo) into the 21st century. Fittingly, much of the imagery derives from popular woodblock prints of the 1800s. For instance, the feline spirit dominating the centre closely resembles the glowering cat demon in Utagawa Kunisada’s woodblock print Cat witch of Okabe (c1853), while the dancing cats (nekomata) surrounding it appear transported from Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s brilliant depictions of the notorious thief Nippondaemon and the cat from the 1840s.