Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama was born on March 22nd 1929 in Japan Her mother was physically abusive and she has described her father as a “womanizer” She was young when she started creating art and was also a writer at the age of 18 She suffered hallucinations and obsessive thoughts when she was young she called polka dot images ’infinity nets’ She left Japan in her early twenties after writing to Georgia O’ Keefe She returned back at the age of 70 and now lives in a mental institute She has an obsession with fashion Worked with Louis Vuitton In 2008 her work was recorded to be the most expensive artwork

Yayoi Kusama uses mostly acrylic along with creating installations and sculptures She also does film An obvious similarity with most of her art work is the repetitive circles or dots or ‘infinity nets’ as she calls them Her work is mostly abstract and is pleasing to the eye with its continuous and never ending patterns and shapes (mostly circles of different sizes and colours) She does not use pointillism but paints the circles herself Kusama uses dots to signify never ending or ‘forever going on’, infinity She doesn’t blend colours, she paints/makes circles of solid colour, though sometimes she gives the illusion of them blending Most of her art work does not show any different tones or ‘shades’ of colour She creates objects using dots and circles using different colours to create the illusion of light and dark areas

The obliteration room Yayoi Kusama 2011 Furniture, stickers

‘The obliteration room’ by Yayoi Kusama was created for the Queensland art gallery It started off as a white room containing white walls, furniture, objects and everything contained in the room was painted white She made it interactive and each person who came was given a sheet of different sizes and colours of dots They were than asked to stick the dots anywhere they liked, in any space or on any object in any shape or pattern Overtime the room became filled with colourful dots of different sizes This signified change over time and how the whole room changed measurably as different people came and how the white room was ‘obliterated’ The white room signified a blank canvas that people could come and decorate the way they wanted

Obliteration room (3 mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xNzr-fJHQw

THE DAYBREAK: THE ARRIVAL OF MORNING Yayoi Kusama 2010 Acrylic on canvas

Hymn of Life Yayoi Kusama 2005 Silkscreen on canvas

Infinity Mirror Room Yayoi Kusama 1965 Sewn stuffed fabric, wooden panel, mirror

http://ca.phaidon.com/agenda/art/picture-galleries/2012/february/02/the-fantastical-world-of-yayoi-kusama/ http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8094/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-yayoi-kusama http://www.artnet.com/artists/yayoi-kusama/3 http://interactive.qag.qld.gov.au/looknowseeforever/works/obliteration_room/