Yayoi Kusama

By Kaylee Conlan
Yayoi Kusama: Yayoi Kusama was born on March
Background 22, 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan
Information She started painting as a child and
had very little formal training. She
only studied for a short period of
time from 1948-1949 at the Kyoto
City Specialist School of Arts.

Growing up was hard for Kusama

since she had abusive parents. This
is part of what drove her to move to
New York in 1957 where she would
pursue her art.
Yayoi Kusama:
Background
Information cont.

Kusama began experiencing

hallucinations as a child. During
these hallucinations she would see
fields of dots. Her hallucinations
have inspired countless art pieces
since she was a child.
Kusama describes herself as an
“obsessional artist,” she is known
for her extensive use of polka dots
and for her infinity installations.
Yayoi Kusama: Early Work
During Kusama’s early work she created her
“infinity net” paintings. These paintings had
thousands of tiny dots that were obsessively
repeated over and over on large canvases so it
would seem like the dots continued into infinity.
Her work from this period anticipated Explored the physical and
the minimalist movement psychological boundaries of painting creating a
hypnotic experience for the artist and viewer alike.

“Curtains
separating
me from
people and
reality.”
 Yayoi Kusama: Early Installations
Obsessive repetition continued to be a theme in
Kusama’s work even after she made the transition
from minimalism to pop art and performance art. In
the early 1960’s she began making sculptures and
installation art.
During this time sexual anxiety
inspired many of her pieces.

Infinity Mirror Room- Phalli’s

Field (1965)
Accumulation No. 1 (1962)
 Yayoi Kusama: Later Work
In 1973 she moved back to Japan and in 1977
she decided to move into a psychiatric asylum
in Tokyo where she still resides today at 92
years old.

She continued making art and started writing

things such as, The Hustlers Grotto of
Christopher Street (1984) and Between
Heaven and Earth (1988).

In 1993 she represented Japan at the Venice Biennale

which included her work, Mirror Room (Pumpkin)
Yayoi Kusama: Later Work cont.
Kusama’s work was a part a retrospective at the
Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City
circa 2012.

Additionally her work attracted record crowds at

Washington DC’s Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden in 2017.

The shows featured a sample of Kusama’s Infinity

Mirrored Room.

In the same year Kusama also opened a museum

dedicated to her work in Tokyo, near the
psychiatric hospital where she lives.
Yayoi Kusama: Creative Process

Everyday Kusama goes to her studio in

the morning and gets to work on a
new piece.

Her studio in Tokyo which is near to

the asylum where she resides is where
Kusama states that the one thing that is
she gets the most work done.
necessary for her creative process is, “The
desire to create great artwork and to commit all
my power to it.”

Kusama also says that she devotes everything in

order to realize her art and that the only trick for
overcoming a block is to just continue to draw
https://youtu.be/ibHY-CLNJyU
Works Cited

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reVBAbo5VU8

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yayoi-Kusa
ma

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-
and-culture/a9196/yayoi-kusama-interview/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibHY-CLNJyU