Izumi Kato is a Japanese artist who creates creatures that unfold in a universe of themselves. The familiarity of his embryonic forms remind us of our origins, while also seeming almost extraterrestrial and prompting our imagination to ponder their existence in the crevices of the world we live in. Taking inspiration from Shinto and Buddhist worldviews, his works explore how everything in our realm has a life of its own. Echoing methodology adopted by the Gutai artists, he painting with his hands, or creates sculptures from stone and wood, and the resulting works are elemental and reminiscent of the primitive. The figurative and tactile, folk elements of his work are fused with supernatural spirit to remind us of the visceral presence of grace and wondrous energy in ordinary things.