Yayoi Kusama (1929) is a Japanese artist.
Attracted to art from an early age, Kusama trained in Nihonga, traditional Japanese painting, before being called upon to work, at the age of 13, sewing parachutes during the Pearl Harbor attack.
Curious to discover the post-war art scene, she moved to New York in 1958, and rubbed shoulders with artists Andy Warhol, Georgia 0'Keeffe...
From 1966, Yayoi Kusama, who became popular in the United States, organized performances and happenings in emblematic places in New York: at the Museum of Modern Art, at the Stock Exchange or at the Statue of Liberty.
Intrigued by the Abstract Expressionism, Watercolor, and Action Painting movements, Kusama finally launched herself fully into Pop Art.
Painter, sculptor, writer, filmmaker and performer, Kusama is a complete, avant-garde and non-conformist artist who leaves a recognizable and indelible mark on the art world.
She makes the principle of accumulation the source of her work, and polka dots her favorite motif.
She designs installations and produces performances related to nudity and the body.
Her creations caused a scandal, but the artist became popular and transmitted a message by defending women's rights and their freedom to control their bodies.
She creates populated environments ad nauseam with phallic and soft shapes, made using her sheets or old socks.
Therapeutic, art serves as an outlet and allows him to deal with his obsessive neuroses and visual hallucinations.
Nevertheless, Kusama returned to Japan in 1973, of her own free will, and still lives today in a psychiatric hospital in which she has a workshop.
In 1993, she was invited to represent Japan at the Venice Biennale. Her work has since been the subject of major retrospectives around the world, attracting crowds of visitors, seduced in particular by her “infinite” environments, invaded by polka dots, luminous diodes, balloons or psychedelic patterns.
One of the most popular works in Japan is the famous Naoshima pumpkin, located on a pontoon by the sea on the island of Naoshima known to be an artistic pearl of Japan.
Since 2017, a museum has been dedicated to him in the city of Tokyo. In 2023, Louis Vuitton collaborated for the second time with the best-selling female artist in the world.

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“My life is a stray pea among millions of other peas.” “I've covered dozens and dozens of notebooks. It was mostly peas and fillets, repeated endlessly. What I saw in my hallucinations was my first steps as an artist and guided me throughout my life. I translate my visions into paintings, sculptures, installations... According to my psychiatrists, I suffer from integration and depersonalization disorders.”
‍Yayoi Kusama