Bakeneko at 2am

The bakeneko is a yokai cat from Japanese folk tradition: an ordinary household cat that, having reached sufficient age, transforms into a supernatural creature capable of standing upright, dancing, and speaking. The 2am of the title locates the print at the witching hour, and Imazu's handling of the subject in etching and aquatint draws on the visual tradition of bakeneko in Edo-period illustrated literature and ukiyo-e. Aquatint suits the nocturnal subject: the medium produces graduated tonal fields well adapted to lamp-lit interiors, moonlit windows, and the dark mass of a cat at full stretch. As a 2012 work it sits among Imazu's earlier yokai-centred prints, which alongside Cat Town (2013) form a small body of cat-related plates. Within her wider practice, the bakeneko fits with the household-scale yokai and small mammals she returns to repeatedly — the suburban Melbourne cat read through Edo-period folk narrative.