If you’ve ever taken a selfie in a room with flashing lights and mirrors that felt like a portal to another dimension—thank Yayoi Kusama. Long before Instagram museums and immersive experiences, Kusama was building worlds to get lost in. Her art is powerful, political, and personal. And she’s been doing it longer than most of us have been alive.
Now 95 and still painting every single day, Kusama isn’t just relevant—she’s resonant. Guess what? She didn’t become the main character by playing nice.
Credit VernissageTV: Yayoi Kusama: Love is Calling / Pérez Art Museum Miami
Origin Story
Katsume was born in Japan in 1929. She saw the world differently from the beginning. As a child, she had intense hallucinations—flowers talking to her, rooms melting into patterns, dots everywhere. Instead of freaking out, she started drawing what she saw. Her childhood was chaotic, family disapproving, and art? Her escape hatch.
Remember Madonna’s origin story? In the 1950s, Kusama packed a suitcase and moved to New York with big dreams and no money. She dove head first into the art scene, refusing to let men—and there were a lot of men—ignore her. And they tried. And she outlasted them.
The OG Performance Artist
Kusama wasn’t just painting her dots—she was dotting people, bodies, walls, everything. In the 1960s, she staged nude protests, threw art events in Central Park, and made experimental films that more original than TikTok. #kasuma
While Warhol and Lichtenstein were getting famous, Kusama was getting copied—and overlooked. But she never stopped working. Never stopped pushing.
Infinity Mirror Rooms
2010s–Kusama’s mirrored rooms become viral sensations. Yes, you probably saw one on your feed. But these weren’t designed for artistic clout—they’re portals into her psyche, meant to dissolve your sense of self. To make you feel both tiny and infinite at once.
Credit: Installation view: Yayoi Kusama, THE SPIRITS OF THE PUMPKINS DESCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS, 2015, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts.
Maximum Color
Let’s talk about the color. Kusama doesn’t use color—she commands color. Fire-engine reds, canary yellows, deep-space blues, acid greens—often all in the same piece (as it should be). Her palettes don’t whisper–they scream. Each one feels like a fever dream with styling. The strong vibrancy isn’t just aesthetic—it’s emotional armor. Joy, rage, fear, obsession—it all explodes in technicolor. She’s not here for subtle. She’s here to make you feel something, in your chest.
Her famous quote sums it up: “By obliterating one’s individual self, one returns to the infinite universe.” It sounds cosmic—but it’s also about surviving mental illness, trauma, and isolation through obsessive creation.
She Lives in a Psychiatric Hospital. By Choice.
Here’s the part that most people don’t know: since the 1970s, Kusama has lived in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo. Her studio is just across the street. Every day, she leaves one space of safety to walk into another of self-expression.
And she works nonstop. Giant pumpkin sculptures, 40-foot paintings, clothing collabs (Louis V.), and books of poetry.
Soft-Spoken Weirdos, the Maximalists (!), the Survivors
Kusama’s legacy isn’t about dots and lights. It’s choosing yourself when no one else does. Turning pain into pattern. Staying weird, loud, and true—long enough for the world to finally catch up.
In a culture obsessed with newness, Kusama is timeless. She’s the patron saint of maximalism (!), the blueprint for immersive art, and proof that longevity > hype.
Yayoi Kusama didn’t change art—she turned it into a universe. And we’re lucky to be living in it.
https://yayoi-kusama.jp/e/information
I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, 2023
Credit: David Zwirner NY 2023