There is a powerful aura surrounding the figures that inhabit the paintings of Japanese-French artist Kai Yoda, although it is not an energy that one would describe as inspiring. Often, these figures appear as eerie, ghostly presences, arising from the alchemy of paint as if summoned from the abyss of hell (or from trauma buried in the depths of the unconscious). After disbanding the artistic duo he created with his partner Ittah Yoda, Kai Yoda began a new chapter in his recently closed exhibition at the Bremond Capela in Paris, where he presents a figurative world full of many cases informed by family trauma, inherited memories and a series of strong ideas he reached on a recent journey of self-discovery. A major influence was his recent residency in Indonesia, which coincided with the Rho Projects exhibition. There, he also encountered a more animist spirituality, associated with the energy of the land and the many species that inhabit it, and that experience entered the full atmosphere that is characteristic of his later work.
Yoda’s latest paintings are the result of spontaneous, spontaneous exercises aimed at reconnecting with something deep within both the soul and the earth: the resilience of natural cycles and the power of the elemental energy. He mainly works with natural colors, collected materials, incense, oil paint, dyes and beeswax, materials that naturally open the space between inner and outer projections. Layer upon layer is piled up until the figurative maturity of bodies and spirits emerges almost magically from the matter of the paintings themselves, suggesting the possibility of endless transformation into new forms.
“I think I’m still seeing myself, I’m still working. It’s hard to judge the distance,” he told the Observer candidly during the show. Although many of the works at first read like summaries of songs from the subconscious, they remain rooted in nature. He explains that many of the colors come from plant testing, which is then modified as part of his process. “I worked with Spanish AI scientists, but after that it is very understandable. And I follow the nature of material things, so that they become something more – maybe spiritual, really logical.”
The end result, Yoda admitted, is worse than the industrial, human refinement audiences might associate with his previous work. His paintings now derive from an acquired animistic empathy that allows him to see beyond the boundaries of individuality and class, embracing the wider nature of tangible things.
When asked about animism and spirituality, Yoda explained that he realized only after leaving Japan that there are very different views about reality: the most primitive, living in harmony with nature, and the Western view that separates people from it. “When I was there, I felt normal to me, just part of the culture.” Then I moved to Europe and realized the Christian culture, and how different that worldview is. “Here, there is a strong separation between animate and inanimate, between object and subject. When I studied at RCA in London, the program was very theoretical, and I felt that I had to put words and concepts into everything.”
Travel has become the essence of his work. Over the past year, he has spent time in different locations, creating works that respond to local plants, animals, dew, weather, food and materials. In a recent project, he collaborated with a chef and a fashion designer on a performance involving wearables, rust, smell, food and physical presence. Smell, touch, sound and taste, in his work, become stimuli for associations that are felt before they are understood.
Yet as the work has become omni-geographical, fluidity is given to a certain sense of connection that began with him in Bali. He remembers the geckos and snakes that lived in the house, the daily offerings of incense and food, and rituals where the ancestors stayed close to the living. “When you live in Indonesia, you have animals in your house, like the first night there was a gecko in front of me, almost like a child, and then there are snakes around, so the separation between people, animals and nature is blurred.”
Even death itself is part of that encounter, he added. “They worship the ancestors, they do these rituals five times a day, they burn incense and food offerings. There is also an island where they hold the dead. They hold the bodies, take them out, and take pictures together. They have a whole ceremony. They smoke cigarettes together. They do it once a year. On this special island, volcanoke, photoshop. The real thing.”
The son of a Japanese photographer and a Swedish model, he carries a family history that provides continuous continuity to the works exhibited at Bremond Capela. His mother appears in some of the paintings, though less as a portrait than a powerful vision: an auratic presence dissolves into a dramatic scream, recalling the emotional intensity of Munch’s portraiture. “I couldn’t draw in front of my mother because I grew up always feeling watched,” Yoda admitted. “My parents were very unreasonable. There were no boundaries. My mother did not allow me to close the door of my room, so I always tried to create a distance. But after Indonesia, I saw a new challenge: to draw him in front of him, facing him as he turns himself in.”
In the painting, he takes not only a likeness but an emotional and powerful charge. He painted it in the kitchen while people gathered, ate, watched and commented. This act was a way to bring attention back to him, fix some distance between them and deal with the trauma and emotional pain he has been carrying since childhood.
Remarkably, Yoda is one of those artists who, despite being deeply connected to the subconscious, does not stop talking openly about his use of artificial intelligence. More often than not, AI serves itself as a tool to further expand, explore and clarify these precise areas. “It’s like a very dark side, but I’m also working with AI software in this dream,” he said. “I upload photos of the paintings I’m working on, usually along with photos I take during the day, and the software combines the two.” AI, for Yoda, is another way to investigate the power of the subconscious mind and follow the collective flow it suggests. “It’s like a conversation. It’s like a conversation, maybe, because before I worked with someone else. AI is like someone else, maybe. It gives feedback that allows you to move on to the next creative step.”
Many of these new works are intermediaries between Japanese folding screens and European altars, reflecting the artist’s position between Asia and Europe, as well as between the cultural heritage of his parents. “It brings a human presence, but also an absence,” she explained, referring to one of the clothes on display. I always try to create sensory experiences that cause different connections in the mind—things we don’t actually see but feel. I try to incorporate smell, touch and sound as part of the work.”
After years of working primarily with sculpture, Yoda has found in painting a strong sense of connection, while still allowing the practice to grow into installation, performance, sensory experience and the creation of a complete figurative world. Suspended in the space, somewhere between a dress, a sculpture and a painting, was a leather vest that he developed in collaboration with Marie-Ève Lecavalier. The objects there establish physical relationships and functions, appealing to touch, smell and physical memory while carrying their own material history. The skin comes from the existing cells. The pigments are mostly handmade from natural ingredients, beeswax and linseed oil. Some canvases were reused and repainted. The wood comes from dead trees collected in Vassvière, where the artist has exhibited before.
At the opening of the Bremond Capela exhibition, there was an almost alchemical performance involving chef Megumi Takeyama, who opened a station full of fermented rice, sake, grain, salt and syrup. The small bites, and the olfactory element offered to visitors, became an extension of the show itself. The tastes and smells were intense, sometimes unpleasant or unsettling, shifting between attraction and repulsion in a collective ritual of reconnecting with the senses and the natural cycles of all things and ingredients. Overall, the exhibition was a hymn to what we all carry within us: that ancient spirit that accompanied our first encounter with the world and that can make us curious, angry, passionate and alive despite the growing sense of isolation and isolation that continues to bind modern life between short and often sad moments.
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