Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama

Revived soul-1995- 300X150CM

Kusama is an artist that is still alive today creating work and taking part in large exhibitions such as her one at the Tate Modern London in 2012 which I went to. Kusama has suffered from a mental illness all her life that allows her to see hallucinations which are both visual and aural. In her early years she was told that this was cause by the art and was encouraged to stop creating work, but she took no notice to this and carried on. She made the right decision as it is now proven that this statement isn't correct and her creating works if anything probably helped the illness.

Kusama's work in her early years was very organic and mostly of natural forms and it is suggested that the inspiration of these is from the seed farm that her parents owned when she was a child. Her work then became darker and there was fewer works throughout the war in Japan, she takes a great amount of inspiration from her surroundings and her work is very much in the moment, there isn't a great deal of planning that goes into it. At this time she kept her work very private and she did use it as more of a personal release of emotion.

Infinity Net (white) 1959 194 X259cm

 In interviews later in the life she has said that the head gets so filled with "visions" that she has to let them out and the only way that she and do this is to put them on paper. Her work is a direct translation of what's in her head there is no particular fancy concept behind it, it's just simple and effective. Kusama's work follows the movements of cubism and surrealism, but by mixing the two she gets a new movement; something that no one is able to follow in the same way a strange juxtaposition of the two.

Sprouting- 1987- 130X162CM

Kusama left Japan in the 1950's for New York a lifelong dream of hers, however she found it very hard to live there for the first few years because of her very poor financial situation and this became a very psychologically traumatic. Because of this as you would expect bought a whole new dimension to her work. Her work became wilder and more vibrant. The colours changed to bright hues, sometimes even neon and the patterns became repetitive. She started to experiment with photography and film, using herself in the work.

She also started playing with sculpture, her most famous sculpture works such as "compulsion Furniture" was based on sex because of very scaring incidents when she was younger, her mother used to send her to spy on her father sleeping with other women. She said it took her years to even consider thinking about until she was ready to start releasing it from her head in the early 1960's. Kusama has lived in a mental hospital since the 1970's in Japan after her condition go worse after moving back from New York. Her studio is across the road where she is allowed to go and create her work on a daily basis.

Her work has always had an element of hope to it, as if she hopes that by creating all these works, one day she will be cured. There seems to be life within her work as if she is putting everything into them, as if she will never get bored, there seems to be no boredom threshold to her work. I believe that she will keep creating work until she dies because of this everlasting hope within her.

Infinity Room-filled with the brilliance of life. 

Throughout her career she has created this personality of the strong, powerful, independent women, who is always happy, and always wears bright clothes and a wig, but in reality when she's in her studio she wears normal clothes and is just this normal grey haired old lady. It's like she has a split personality, the difference between expectation and reality. She is trying to be someone who she's not and this confuses me, but again it could just be a way of dealing with her illness.


Yayoi Kusama- Tate exhibition book- 2012
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/yayoi-kusama