'The Garden of Wandering Spirits'

Masako Miki transforms the gallery into an immersive Japanese-inspired domestic interior that opens onto an imagined garden landscape populated by felted-wool sculptures and watercolor paintings. Her work introduces viewers to enchanted characters known as Yōkai, supernatural beings from Japanese folklore believed to inhabit everyday items and elements of nature such as umbrellas, rocks, and trees. Through abstraction, Miki translates the morphic qualities of the Yōkai into visual language, creating playful figures that resist fixed interpretation and embody fluid identities that move between the sacred and the common, the animate and inanimate. With her cast of shapeshifters, Miki extends this ancient mythology into the present, emphasizing how the objects we make and the landscapes we design generate cultural narratives that move between imagination and lived experience. 

Informed by the artist’s upbringing in Japan and three decades of living in California, this installation reflects Miki’s research into the history of Japanese gardens in the U.S., tracing their evolution into sites where cultural traditions and perspectives intersect and new meanings emerge. The exhibition echoes the contemplative experience of moving through these gardens, creating a space for pause and reflection. In this surreal environment laden with vibrant Yōkai, Miki encourages us to consider our surroundings imbued with presence and memories. Her works foster connection and empathy, inviting us to create new stories and mythologies through which we may better understand ourselves, each other, and our desired futures.