Naoya Oshima
Naoya Oshima
Facsimile of a Nonexistent Yokai Archive
Facsimile of a Nonexistent Yokai Archive
Online: 2026.05.15 - 06.30
Online Exhibition
SHIKISAISHA is pleased to present Yoizu Genjo Mosha, an online exhibition by Naoya Oshima.
In this series, Oshima develops a practice of depicting fictional picture scrolls and archival materials as though they truly existed. Using imaginary subjects such as yōkai and supernatural beings, he carefully renders stains, wrinkles, fading, and other traces reminiscent of aged historical documents.
Although the original sources themselves are entirely fictional, these detailed surface expressions lend the works the texture and presence of authentic historical artifacts. By openly presenting the works as “copies” while simultaneously layering signs of deterioration and weathering, Oshima blurs the boundary between fiction and documentation.
The works may also be viewed in person during Shikisaisha’s opening hours upon request.We warmly invite you to view the exhibition online.
Artist Statement
Through the ambiguity of seeing and recording, this series explores how uncertain presences come to be collectively shared through painting.
The yōkai depicted in these works do not exist, yet they are rendered as though they had once been documented and preserved somewhere in history. Borrowing the visual language of murals, illustrated records, and deteriorated artifacts, the paintings portray these imagined entities as if they remain before us in the present moment.
Through images that move between familiarity and discomfort, I explore how we believe in, remember, and collectively share visual narratives and imagined forms.
SHIKISAISHA is pleased to present Yoizu Genjo Mosha, an online exhibition by Naoya Oshima.
In this series, Oshima develops a practice of depicting fictional picture scrolls and archival materials as though they truly existed. Using imaginary subjects such as yōkai and supernatural beings, he carefully renders stains, wrinkles, fading, and other traces reminiscent of aged historical documents.
Although the original sources themselves are entirely fictional, these detailed surface expressions lend the works the texture and presence of authentic historical artifacts. By openly presenting the works as “copies” while simultaneously layering signs of deterioration and weathering, Oshima blurs the boundary between fiction and documentation.
The works may also be viewed in person during Shikisaisha’s opening hours upon request.We warmly invite you to view the exhibition online.
Artist Statement
Through the ambiguity of seeing and recording, this series explores how uncertain presences come to be collectively shared through painting.
The yōkai depicted in these works do not exist, yet they are rendered as though they had once been documented and preserved somewhere in history. Borrowing the visual language of murals, illustrated records, and deteriorated artifacts, the paintings portray these imagined entities as if they remain before us in the present moment.
Through images that move between familiarity and discomfort, I explore how we believe in, remember, and collectively share visual narratives and imagined forms.
Naoya Oshima
Naoya Oshima (b. 1995, Gifu, Japan) completed his PhD in Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2024. Through a process of cutting, rearranging, and translating photographs and existing visual imagery into painting, he explores the shifting boundaries between reality and fiction. In his recent *Yōizu Genjō Mosha* series, Oshima creates paintings that appear to be reproductions of historical picture scrolls and documents that never actually existed, incorporating stains, creases, and signs of aging to lend fictional images a compelling sense of reality. At a time when the distinction between the real and the fabricated is increasingly blurred, his practice investigates new forms of reality that can emerge through the act of painting.
Naoya Oshima (b. 1995, Gifu, Japan) completed his PhD in Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2024. Through a process of cutting, rearranging, and translating photographs and existing visual imagery into painting, he explores the shifting boundaries between reality and fiction. In his recent *Yōizu Genjō Mosha* series, Oshima creates paintings that appear to be reproductions of historical picture scrolls and documents that never actually existed, incorporating stains, creases, and signs of aging to lend fictional images a compelling sense of reality. At a time when the distinction between the real and the fabricated is increasingly blurred, his practice investigates new forms of reality that can emerge through the act of painting.
