For this exhibition, Bay Area artist Masako Miki selected seventeen paintings, prints, and drawings by Paul Klee in SFMOMA’s collection to be shown in dialogue with her own large-scale watercolor landscape, Hyakki Yagyo, Night parade of one hundred demons — Beginning of another life with ruby red fox deity (2021).

Inspiring a sense of wonderment, Klee’s works feature a wide cast of invented, whimsical creatures drawn from his close observations of nature. The artist believed that fantasy could stimulate the mind to imagine new possibilities. In her practice, Miki similarly engages elements of the fantastical and the supernatural as generative forces.

Her Hyakki Yagyo introduces viewers to a world inspired by yōkai, mischievous creatures and phenomena from Japanese folklore. Miki engages these traditional stories while proposing new narratives for our time. Paired in this presentation, the works of Klee and Miki reveal both artists’ deep belief in the power of art as an act of creation.