Yōkai: Introduction to the Supernatural Beings of Japan with Meher McArthur

Yōkai: An Introduction to the Supernatural Beings of Japan with Meher McArthur

In-person & Online event

To the Japanese, yōkai are mysterious phenomena and weird creatures that have inhabited the country’s landscape, homes, folklore and imagination for many centuries. They can be evil or benign spirits, ranging from shape-shifting animals like foxes and badgers, who adopt human form to trick, bewitch or reward humans, to the vengeful ghosts of warriors killed in battle or women wronged by their husbands. Yōkai can also be supernatural creatures from folklore like kappa (river imps that pull people and horses into the water), oni (demons that cause devastation, storms and plagues), and even objects like umbrellas and lanterns that mysteriously come to life as tsukumogami.

Japanese art historian Meher McArthur will introduce this captivating aspect of Japanese culture that is still very much alive today, using images from local art collections, including USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena and Scripps College in Claremont.

Meher McArthur is an Asian art historian specializing in Japanese art. She read Japanese Studies at Cambridge University and holds an MA in Japanese art history from London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She was Curator of East Asian Art at Pacific Asia Museum (PAM, now USC PAM) and Creative Director for the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden, both in Pasadena, and also worked as Academic Curator for Scripps College, Claremont and Art and Cultural Director for JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles.

She curates traveling exhibitions for International Arts & Artists (IA&A), including the current exhibition KIMONO: Garment, Canvas, and Artistic Muse. Her exhibition Sound of Water: Feminine Expressions of Fluidity is on view at Descanso Gardens in La-Cañada-Flintridge until January 3, 2027. Her exhibition (curated for Scripps College), Yōkai: Scenes of the Supernatural in Japanese Woodblock Prints is on view until August 30 at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Florida. Her upcoming exhibitions are: Healing with Gold: The Japanese Art of Kintsugi on Ceramics and Beyond (opens at the JACCC in Little Tokyo on September 12), Energetic Connections: The Ki Paintings of Yoshio Ikezaki (opens at the Shumei Hall Gallery in Pasadena on October 4), and Painted Prayers: The Japanese Folk Painting Tradition of Ema (opens at Mingei International Museum on October 17).

Her publications include Japanese Buddhist and Shinto Prints From the Collection of Manly P. Hall (Sam Fogg, 1996), Gods and Goblins: Folk Paintings from Otsu (PAM, 1999), Reading Buddhist Art (Thames & Hudson, 2002) and The Arts of Asia (Thames & Hudson, 2005), An ABC of What Art Can Be (Getty Museum, 2010), New Expressions in Origami Art (Tuttle, 2017). Her memoir A Japanese Art Journey was published by Tuttle in late 2025. She lives in Pasadena, CA.

Tickets: $12 (in person & online)

Please email events@prs.org or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.

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Through Mirrors, Webs, & Woods: A Month of Folk & Fairy Tales at PRS

This September, PRS celebrates the many wonders of fairytales and folk stories through a series of illustrated presentations, film screenings, and workshops!

Banner photo:

Demons Fleeing from Otafuku

Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831-1889), 1870

Full-color woodblock print, ink on paper