The Obliteration Room
2002 · Furniture, white paint, dot stickers · 500 × 700 cm
Narcissus Garden
1966 · Stainless steel spheres · 30 × 30 cm
Infinity Nets (Yellow)
1960 · Oil on canvas · 240 × 297 cm
Pumpkin
1994 · Fiberglass-reinforced plastic, urethane paint · 200 × 250 cm
Infinity Mirror Room — Phalli's Field
1965 · Sewn stuffed cotton fabric, mirrors, board · 450 × 450 cm
Yayoi Kusama (born 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist and one of the most popular and influential living artists in the world. She is known for her obsessive use of polka dots, infinity mirror rooms, and immersive installations. Her work spans painting, sculpture, fashion, and environmental art, exploring themes of infinity, repetition, and self-obliteration.
Her most iconic works include the Infinity Mirror Rooms series (ongoing since 1965), Pumpkin (1994) sculptures, Infinity Nets paintings (ongoing since 1958), Narcissus Garden (1966), and the Obliteration Room interactive installation. Her Infinity Mirror Rooms have become global cultural phenomena, drawing millions of visitors.
Kusama has experienced visual and auditory hallucinations since childhood, often seeing dots and nets covering everything around her. She uses polka dots as a way to process these visions and as a symbol of cosmic infinity and interconnectedness. She has called her dots "a way to infinity" and a path to self-obliteration — dissolving the self into the infinite universe.
Since 1977, Kusama has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric institution in Tokyo, Japan, near her studio where she continues to create art daily. Despite living in the hospital, she remains one of the most prolific and commercially successful artists in the world, with a dedicated museum — the Yayoi Kusama Museum — that opened in Tokyo in 2017.
Kusama's work defies easy categorization but has been associated with Pop Art, Minimalism, Feminist Art, and Environmental Art. She was a pioneer of many artistic trends in the 1960s, including soft sculpture, body painting performances, and immersive installations, influencing artists like Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.
This page features public domain works by Yayoi Kusama and is not managed by the artist.
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