I can’t recall exactly when I became obsessed with the art of Goya. All I know is that it was the etching ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,’ with the artist himself depicted fast asleep at his desk, that hooked me. Looking at it you can hear the beating of the owls’ wings, and then there’s that cat at his feet.

The 1970s brought a Goya retrospective to Tokyo’s National Museum of Western Art, a Japanese translation of André Malraux’s Saturn: An Essay on Goya, and the publication of Yoshie Hotta’s biography Goya. Japanese society was struggling with its own demons back of the age, and I believe the etching’s warning about the sleep of reason served as a stark reminder to us all.

The phantasms depicted in Los Caprichos, Los Proverbios and Los Desastres De La Guerra have been scurrying through my mind ever since.

They spoke to me as I made these photographs. I could feel them leading me through a parodic labyrinth in which illusions, masquerading as truth, form shadows alternate reality. I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but I felt the potential for a new type of photograph there.

It is a great honor to have Ms. Stephenson’s selection of my Los Caprichos shown in New York. 2020

Spring,

2020. Tokyo.