Famously known as the “princess of polka dots,” Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist who works in a variety of media such as painting, drawing, sculpture, film, performance, and immersive installation.
Born in Japan in 1929, Kusama went to the Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts where she trained in a traditional Japanese painting style called nihonga. Kusama was more strongly inspired, however, by American Abstract Impressionism. Kusama came to the United States in 1957 and found herself deeply captivated by the New York avant-garde style. Noticing the increase of the hippie unconventional culture of the late 1960s, she emerged to the spotlight when she organized a series of events, where nude participants were painted with vivid coloured polka dots.
Later, she started covering items like shoes, ladders, and chairs with white phallic protrusions. She had micromanaged intricacy in her drawings, yet turned them out in bulk quickly, creating a tempo of productivity — which she maintains to this day. She also has other established habits, like wearing her signature red bobbed wig, avant-garde fashions, and having herself routinely photographed with new work.
Kusama is most recognized for her series of complex infinity mirror installations. These purpose-built rooms are coated with mirrored glass consisting of neon-coloured balls, hanging at several heights above the viewer. Standing inside on a little stage, a viewer can see the light reflected off the mirrored surfaces, which generates a mirage of endlessness. Generally, this involves a cube-shaped room lined in mirrors, with twinkling lights and water on the floor; thus suggesting a model of life and death.
Nonetheless, after achieving fame via innovative exhibitions, she went back to her native country in 1973 and is now one of Japan’s most prominent contemporary artists.
In her ninth decade, Kusama has continued to do what she loves best. She has harkened to earlier works, returning to drawing and painting. Her work has stayed original and innovative, and a 2012 exhibition has showcased several acrylic-on-canvas works. Her most recent painting series, “My Eternal Soul” (2009–present), is stunning. Ebullient in colour and matched with sculptures that bear titles such as “My Adolescence in Bloom”, they mark a striking progression in the use of Kusama’s signature symbol of the polka dot. Some exhibitions on view in North America currently are the Infinity Mirror Room, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016, a field of yellow, dotted pumpkins spreading into infinity.
Kusama’s artworks harken back to her turbulent childhood and mental illnesses, including obsessive-compulsive behaviour and hallucinations. One particular hallucination placed Kusama in a field of flowers that talked to her. The heads of flowers resembled dots that blurred into an endless line, and Kusama notes that it felt as if she was disappearing into this domain of “endless” dots.
Furthermore, Kusama has suffered a series of mental breakdowns and has attempted suicide several times— due to overwork, pressure, social rejection and financial hardship. By choice and necessity, she currently lives in Seiwa Mental Hospital — saying art has become her only way of coping and healing.
To learn more about Yayoi Kusama, visit her website.
