The artist Izumi Kato has created his own species, humanoid creatures that seem not quite done with gestation, their systems still forming, their eyes seeing in unearthly comprehension. Kato, who does not use brushes but applies paint with gloved fingertips, has said antiquities and African art are among his many influences. His quest is “to paint pictures that only I can paint,” he told The Artling in 2018. “I couldn’t do as well as others did, in other things. That led me to pursue what I felt only I could do.” And what he does—whether oil on canvas or sculpted from wood—is hauntingly strange and sentient. —L.J.