Fox lady – Yokai exhibition in JapanIn may 2010, when we lived in Niigata, Japan, we had the c

Fox lady – Yokai exhibition in Japan

In may 2010, when we lived in Niigata, Japan, we had the chance to witness a very mysterious event in the mountains : a fox wedding under the cherry-blossom trees. It remains one of our most beautiful and strange memories from Japan. The inhabitants of the village had fox makeup and were celebrating this strange slow wedding until late in the night. We saw a young lady with a beautiful yukata and a fox mask upon her head plus a fox makeup on the face. She was acting like a real fox, with the hands closed like fox paws.

In Japan, it is said that foxes change into beautiful girl to attract men in traps ! This girls was sooo strangely beautiful that we couldn’t prevent ourselves from thinking she was a real one…

We used this idea many time for our sign sessions of our graphic novel Onibi but this time we made it very close to our memory of a strange and ecstatic spring day in the mountains.

For the clothes, we use washi paper (Japanese paper) that helps us to imagine the colors and the motif.