Bold colors – psychedelic at times – with dots, shapes and figures that are familiar and foreign at the same time characterize the work of this Japanese artist. It’s not easy to fully understand her art, but it doesn’t take long to get lost in it.
Alarge painting simply titled Pumpkin dated 1990 portrays the out-of-shape fruit in a combination of yellow color and black dots on a background that looks like a net. Closer inspection shows that the dots are definitely painted, even the tiniest ones, telling of a process that must be hypnotically repetitive to the point of obsessive. Most of the artwork by Yayoi Kusama has this quality, as the artist and writer channels her mental illness into a novel artistic point of view.
The general public became aware of Kusama from her collaboration with luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton. Creative director Marc Jacobs described her energy as “endless” and saw a world that never ends in her work. The dots obsession and use of mirrors to create endless spaces in her installations prove as much. Louis Vuitton revealed a bold collection in 2012 featuring the artist’s signature spots on every item, from bags to dresses. But Kusama, now 84 years old, has been gaining acknowledgment from fellow artists and collectors in the art world for a much longer period, while her artistic journey had already begun from the young age of 10.
Around that time, she began experiencing hallucinations, visual distortions and auditory phenomena including auras around objects along with talking animals and plants. “One day I suddenly looked up to find that each and every violet had its own individual, human-like facial expression, and to my astonishment they were all talking to me,” she wrote in Infinity Net, her 2002 autobiography. The world which only she could see was poured into numerous dot-filled drawings which her business-oriented mother loathed. Many of the subjects of her later works can be traced back to her childhood, from the pumpkins commonly found in her family’s wholesale seed company to the phallus-shaped objects she repeatedly created in order to overcome her disgust towards sex, a trauma instilled by her father’s infidelity.
Encouraged by letters exchanged with artist Georgia O’Keeffe who continuously supported her for a long time, Kusama left for the United States in 1957. She gradually made acquaintances with fellow artists and gained recognition as an all-around artist with her large paintings, soft sculptures, environmental installations, multimedia and experimental public art performances. Ironically, her excessive productivity was the result of worsening mental and physical health, and she was forced to return to Japan.
Kusama experienced many hardships before and after her return. She claimed that some of the artists she highly regarded, including Warhol and Oldenburg, copied her distinct style. Despite the fame, her work was not profitable. Her often controversial notions also met a lot of opposition and were deemed as manic efforts to create sensations, including her naked “happenings” where she painted dots on a group of naked, dancing people in public places. Back in Japan, her artistic expression received cold responses and she finally checked herself into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill, unable to bear the sickness by herself any longer. She took to writing novels and poems, gaining a cult following for her writing but still far from the spotlight.
“Thinking back, I have travelled a long road to get here. My constant battle with art began when I was still a child. But my destiny was decided when I made up my mind to leave Japan and journey to America,” Kusama said. Destiny was indeed at work when in the late 1980s, her art was rediscovered. She was commissioned for important solo exhibitions at the Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England. It was her turning point, and she began to rekindle her therapeutic relationship with art. Kusama was even invited to hold an exhibition at places which had turned against her in her younger years, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Venice Biennale. One of her paintings auctioned at Christie’s was sold for US$5.1 million, breaking the record for a living female artist.
Until now, she still lives in the mental hospital, writing at night and painting in a small allocated place or going to her nearby studio when her health permits. “I may be physically getting older, but I am ever so enthusiastic now about creating art work,” she said. Her canvases remain large; the only difference is that now they are laid down as she paints instead of stood up, as she is no longer able to climb stepladders to paint.
Kusama’s fondness for being the center of attention formed her intriguing persona; she is an eccentric old lady who wears bright and colorful wigs, clothes patterned like her paintings, and has endless passion to create. Unlike artists who want their art to be seen as rare and exclusive, Kusama encourages the general public to access and enjoy her works by producing commercial goods such as T-shirts, key chains and soft sculptures that are sold in museums and concept stores. “From now until the last day of my life, I will keep developing my creative process and my artistic philosophy while maintaining an artistic position on everything.”
Photos by: Yayoi Kusama Studio
