Japanese artist and polka dot queen Yayoi Kusama dies
Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, whose signature polka dots were splashed across an Adelaide exhibition just four years ago, has died aged 97.
Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama, who transformed hallucinations into art and was known for her obsessive dot-covered paintings and pumpkin motifs, has died at the age of 97.
The announcement made on her official website said she died on August 14, and her representative David Zwirner said she suffered from organ failure.
Frustrated with the confining nature of Japanese society, Kusama left for New York at 27, where she quickly made a name for herself with her paintings, inspired by hallucinations of flashing lights, dots and flowers she had seen since childhood.
She also wrote, took part in anti-war activities during the 1960s, and reportedly influenced artists such as Andy Warhol.
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Kusama, who was candid about her mental health struggles, said New York gave her neuroses. Around 1977, a few years after returning to Japan, she voluntarily entered a mental hospital and lived there for decades, being driven to her nearby studio each morning.
“I still see hallucinations even now,” Kusama said in 2017.
“Dots come flying everywhere – on my dress, the floor, things I’m carrying, throughout the house, the ceiling. And I paint them.”
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Repetitive motifs were her trademark, in various shapes, resembling netting, swirls or worms, but most often dots, dancing proudly on her canvases, or as sparkling balls or dots of light in her installations.
A major retrospective of Kusama’s work was staged at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2024. It was her biggest ever show in Australia.
Kusama’s exhibition THE SPIRITS OF THE PUMPKINS DESCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS, featuring a bright yellow room filled with black polka dots, toured the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2022, while her polished-bronze sculpture was loaned to the gallery in 2019.
– with Reuters and AAP
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