Yayoi Kusama — Most Known Japanese Female Artist

Today, the name of Yayoi Kusama resonates with millions of people throughout the world. One of the most famous female artists of the contemporary era, Yayoi Kusama has long been known as an extraordinary and transcendent conceptual artist, whose work is lauded as revolutionary.

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto in 1929. After graduating from Matsumoto Girl’s High School, the young girl entered Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts, where she studied traditional Japanese painting. Despite her formal art education, Kusama is considered a self-taught artist as she began painting as a child and developed her artistic skills independently. It is interesting that many of Kusama’s works are inspired by hallucinations that she suffered from in childhood and afterward. Thus, dots, a product of her hallucinations, were her starting point in art and became her distinct artistic signature later in life.

Throughout her impressive career, Yayoi Kusama has greatly contributed to contemporary Japanese art, as well as to several specific movements, including surrealism, futurism, minimalism, feminism, pop art, and her pivotal niche – abstract expressionism. Her extensive portfolio may tell you a lot about the artist, her life, and her attitude on a range of topics.

Numerous art installations and performances organized by Kusama are imbued with autobiographical elements, to say nothing of controversial political and sexual content. Some of the most known are her nude performances in 1960 in Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the Vietnam War.

The central ideas standing behind Yayoi Kusama’s art are intended to approach the infinity and eternity of the human mind and soul. The artist has managed to mix deep personal feelings with swirling abstract images. Probably, it is her unique way to share the reflection of her own troubled life and let the viewers once again feel the singularity of their own lives.