Speaking to Gabriella Angeleti for Elephant, Japanese artist ob reflects on imagination, memory and the evolution of her practice.
The Japanese artist ob is part of a generation of artists exploring the porous boundaries between the digital, spiritual and physical world. In the late 2000s, she began running online art communities to engage with other young artists and organised digital exhibitions, and has since evolved per practice into a meditation on the spaces between imagination and reality. The artist studied at Kyoto Arts High School and briefly Kyoto Saga Junior College. She is also a member Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki, the influential artist management and production company that has supported figures like AYA TAKANO and Mr. In this interview with Elephant, the artist tells us about her background and her solo exhibition at Perrotin in New York, Phantom Tales, where she presents a series of new paintings and drawings that evoke dreamlike “phantoms,” or symbols of memory and fantasy.
You were born in Kagoshima in 1992, studied in Kyoto and now live and work in Saitama. What was your early life like and how did it shape your imagination and path toward becoming an artist?
I remember growing up in an environment surrounded by animals, with mountains and rivers close by. I loved running around outdoors and going out on picnics. Even in video games, I was interacting with nature and animals. Looking back, that feeling of moving effortlessly between nature and virtual reality may still be connected to how I experience things today.
What types of media most profoundly informed your artistic sensibility?
My entry point came through manga, anime, video games, and image culture on the internet. Experiencing the cycle of “seeing / drawing / receiving responses” on the internet was particularly formative. Becoming absorbed in posting and sharing work online was my starting point. I began with illustration, but around 2008 I encountered deliberately deconstructed, expressionistic scenes in online spaces, which led me to become drawn to the atmosphere and material presence of painting.
What inspired you to formally pursue art in university?
I didn’t want images to remain only at the level of sensation or intuition, so I wanted to explore their technical and art-historical backgrounds as well. For that reason, I studied at an art high school before entering university. From my high school years, I viewed contemporary art in person and developed an admiration for the physical presence of painting—something distinct from images experienced online.
During university, you ran online communities and organised digital exhibitions to engage and exchange with other artists. How did those early experiences in digital communities inform your practice?
I felt that there was value in creating connections that go beyond works simply flowing past and being consumed on a timeline, by bringing relationships into real exhibition spaces and placing artists’ works side by side to be seen together. Since that experience, I have come to see my practice as something that does not end within the support or medium itself, but only truly comes into being when it includes the experience of being viewed within a physical space. I have also learned that organising exhibitions inevitably requires coordination and collaboration with others, and that this very process plays a crucial role in shaping a “place” for the work.
Many of your works seem to explore liminal spaces, like between reality and imagination, past and present and individuals and shared experience.
In recent years, feeling that it might offer insights for my practice, I have engaged in regular counseling. I became aware of a structure in which observation takes precedence over evaluation, and in which a space gradually emerges through moving alongside one another while maintaining a certain distance. I find in this state—being separate yet connected—a beauty that feels akin to that of an artwork. In my own paintings, I likewise do not wish to present meanings as something fully fixed by the artist. Instead, I aim to create works that leave space for viewers to insert their own memories and emotions.
Phantom Tales invites viewers into a world where imagination blurs with reality and digital life. What motivated you to frame this body of work around the idea of “phantoms”?
I sought to contemplate dualities of devices that are easy to imagine, such as mirrors, water surfaces, and smartphones (including images of AI and social media). I do not want paintings to present a single answer, but rather to serve as small triggers that activate the viewer’s imagination. I want to leave room for new narratives to be created on the viewer’s side. Imagination can be a source of support, but when it becomes excessive, it can also narrow one’s perspective.
While I am influenced by folklore and mythology in my choice of motifs, I try not to let these references become overly emphasized. Characters can acquire a sense of physical presence through media. When people receive experiences, they unconsciously construct narratives. I treat characters and toys as symbols—phantoms—in which inner images are reflected, as manifestations of that psychological process.
Themes related to death and the afterlife are present in several works, like Emotional Time Lag and Glass Shrine (both 2025). Could you walk us through these pieces?
There is a custom called meikon, in which photographs of the deceased or dolls are displayed in hopes of marriage in the afterlife. I felt this practice functioned as a form of grief care. Whenever I encounter stories of psychological support using sandplay therapy after the Great East Japan Earthquake, or recurring human conflicts found in folklore, I find myself reflecting on acts of “belief” and the way people use stories to process loss. In particular, Glass Shrine was a “glass house” I created as a place to hold my emotions while grieving the loss of a small bird I once kept. I am deeply interested in the fact that when people try to overcome loss, narratives and rituals can serve as a form of support.
How has your work evolved from previous shows at Perrotin like Your, My, Story in 2020 to this latest exhibition? What is a constant in your artistic vision?
In Your, My, Story (2021), I was thinking along similar lines to this exhibition, but I chose motifs that allowed for even more open-ended interpretations. Later, in Miniature Garden (2022), I likened the “individual world” to a garden, and in Water Line (2024), inspired by mermaids and the scenery of Hong Kong, I explored what exists at boundaries. With Phantom Tales, I incorporated motifs I had previously worked with, while expanding beyond figures to depict small objects and characters as containers for the mind, aiming to visualize the mind (invisible inner structures). What remains consistent throughout is my approach to figures—not as characters that fix meaning, but as vessels that emerge through the viewer’s interpretation and experience, leaving space for multiple readings rather than a single answer.
What do you have coming up next?
Most recently, I am scheduled to present work at Art Basel Hong Kong. Through holding this solo exhibition, I also found myself wanting—though it remains undecided—to try creating a series based on folklore, something I have long been interested in. In recent years, I’ve tended to deepen a theme toward a single exhibition and bring it to a kind of conclusion there, so at the moment I feel somewhat emptied out. Still, I want to continue building again, little by little, including that sense of blankness.
