KUCHING: Yayoi Kusama, the pioneering Japanese avant-garde artist whose polka dots, pumpkins and immersive installations became some of the most recognisable works in contemporary art, has passed away aged 97.
Her studio announced today (Aug 27) that Kusama passed away at a hospital in Tokyo on Aug 14, saying she continued painting until her final days after a lifetime devoted to artistic creation.
Known around the world as the “Polka-Dot Queen”, Kusama built a career spanning more than six decades across painting, sculpture, installations, performance, fiction and poetry. Her signature repetitive patterns and Infinity Mirror Rooms eventually brought her work to audiences around the world.
Born in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in 1929, Kusama began making art at a young age before studying painting in Kyoto and later moving to the United States, where she established herself in New York’s avant-garde art scene.
Her polka dots became synonymous with her work, while pumpkins were another recurring motif rooted in her childhood. Kusama encountered pumpkins while growing up around her family’s plant nursery business, and they later became associated with comfort and a sense of peace in her artistic practice.
Kusama once captured her enduring connection with the motif simply: “Pumpkins talk to me.” The line comes from her 2010 writing On Pumpkins, in which she described pumpkins as a source of peace and joy.
After returning to Japan in the 1970s, Kusama continued producing art and writing, while her international profile grew significantly in later decades.
Her Infinity Mirror Rooms, which use mirrors and repeated lights or objects to create an illusion of endless space, became among her best-known works, drawing large audiences at exhibitions around the world.
Kusama also represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993, while the Yayoi Kusama Museum dedicated to her work opened in Tokyo in 2017. She was named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2016 and received Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, in 2006.
In announcing her passing, her studio said Kusama never set aside her brush and remained committed to her exploration of love and the eternal soul until her final days.
Her passing closes an extraordinary chapter in contemporary art, leaving behind the dots, pumpkins and infinite spaces that made Kusama one of Japan’s most internationally recognised artists.
