Introducing Chiaki Kamikawa: Between Worlds and Whispered Spirits

Hello and nice to meet you!

When I think about my journey as an artist, I see it as a long conversation between worlds — the seen and unseen, the familiar and the uncanny, the ordinary and the mythic.

I’m Chiaki Kamikawa, born in Japan, and today I live and work in Cyprus. My practice spans painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and printmaking — all mediums I choose to explore the layers of reality woven with fantasy.

Growing up in Japan, I was surrounded by a cultural landscape where animism wasn’t just a concept but a lived belief — the idea that nature, objects, even words, carry their own spirits. This worldview, deeply rooted in Shinto and folk traditions, became the foundation for how I see the world and how I make art. I grew up with an affectionate respect for the spirit in all things, and this belief has stayed with me throughout my life and continues to shape my work.

Nekomata - the two-tail cat spirit from Japanese folklore is the main character here, combined with the cat-feeding ladies (a daily scene in Cyprus)

My early years as an artist took me to Europe, first to the UK where I studied at Edinburgh College of Art, and later to the Netherlands at the Sandberg Instituut. These experiences expanded my visual language but also intensified my connection to the roots I carried with me — the stories of spirits, folklore, and memory from Japan. Living in Western contexts, surrounded by different histories and landscapes, made me more curious about bringing these animistic ideas into dialogue with new environments.

In 2007 I made Cyprus my home, and the island’s light, history, and rugged landscapes have since become inseparable from my artistic concerns. I value authentic relationships with the places that inspire me — it’s not enough to borrow a setting; I want to engage with it, live with it, and feel its influence before it enters my work. Over the years, my themes have expanded from introspective narratives rooted in Japanese memory to scenes infused with Cypriot culture and everyday life — rendered through my own symbolic language.

In this work, I combine the traditional Japanese ceramics and Cyprus village scene.

What draws people to my work, I think, is this blend of narrative and mystery. My pieces often sit on the border between reality and fantasy: domestic interiors, landscapes, and architectural forms populated by both human and non-human characters, shadows, spirits, and little secret figures hiding in corners. I enjoy that tension — it’s playful, introspective, and sometimes humorous. I place little visual traps for the viewer: giggling eyes tucked behind objects, words floating in the air, uncanny silhouettes that drift between the everyday and the imagined.

Although my art may reference traditional Japanese motifs — from the elegance of Ukiyo-e to the subcultural energy of manga and yokai — it’s ultimately about offering alternatives: alternate ways of seeing, of inhabiting our surroundings, and of remembering what we too often overlook. In every mark I make, I want to invite you into a world that feels both familiar and strange — one where spirits might just be waiting to be noticed.