Yayoi Kusama
Born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929, Yayoi Kusama is known for her immersive installations and distinctive use of polka dots and proliferating forms. Working across drawing, painting, collage, soft sculpture, film, installation, performance, writing, and commercial projects, she has developed a diverse and highly personal body of work that addresses ideas of infinity and “self-obliteration.”
Yayoi Kusama, 2020. Photo: Yusuke Miyazaki © YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Ota Fine Arts, and Victoria Miro.
Trained in the traditional Nihonga style of painting in Japan, Kusama’s early paintings and watercolours introduced the intricate looped forms that later defined her Infinity Net paintings. Following her move to New York in 1958, these works received significant critical acclaim. Immersed in the city’s artistic community, she engaged with movements ranging from Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism and Pop Art. However, she maintained her independence from any particular group, allowing her practice to evolve in response to a wide range of influences.
Kusama’s polka dot motifs stem from hallucinatory episodes she has experienced since childhood, in which repeated forms appear to overtake the physical world. Her work often revisits these perceptions through repetition, accumulation, proliferation and obliteration - ideas reflected in her titles and writing. Her installations invite viewers into immersive environments that disorientate and evoke a sense of boundlessness.
Yayoi Kusama, Detail of Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, the Love in My Heart, 2023. Bronze and urethane paint © YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy David Zwirner, Ota Fine Arts, and Victoria Miro.
Beginning in 1992 with her first pumpkin sculptures, Kusama has developed a vocabulary of biomorphic forms, including plants and flowers. Raised in a family that cultivated plant seeds, the kabocha squash of her childhood is a form that continues to recur in her work. Rendered in vivid colours and dramatically enhanced scales, these organic forms are characteristic of her practice and imagery.
Across decades, Kusama’s work has remained expansive in scope and sustained in its exploration of repetition, perception and infinity, continuing to resonate with audiences worldwide.
