Visionary, obsessive and endlessly inventive, Yayoi Kusama has transformed repetition into revelation.
Her world of dots, mirrors and infinite reflection continues to draw audiences into one of the most recognisable and enduring aesthetics in contemporary art.
1. Her art is rooted in hallucination and healing
Kusama began painting as a child in Matsumoto, Japan, to make sense of the vivid hallucinations that filled her world with fields of dots and flowers. Rather than reject these experiences, she learned to channel them into art. Repetition became her way of finding order in chaos, turning fear into focus and anxiety into pattern. Each dot, she says, is “a symbol of my life, one of the millions of dots that make up the universe.”
2. She built worlds the viewer could step into
Kusama changed how audiences experience art. Long before immersive installations became common, she was creating environments that surrounded and absorbed the viewer. From mirrored rooms to fields of soft-sculpted forms, her works invite people to engage rather than simply observe. In doing so, she turned the act of viewing into something participatory, something you step inside rather than stand apart from.
3. The polka dot as universal language
Of all her motifs, the polka dot remains the most recognisable. It appears everywhere, on canvases, sculptures, clothing and entire rooms, linking the microscopic and the cosmic. As Kusama once explained, “A single dot can become movement.” In her hands, that simple shape becomes a language of connection, repetition and unity, one that feels both intimate and infinite.
4. She lives voluntarily in a psychiatric hospital and still works every day
Since the 1970s, Kusama has chosen to live in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo, across the street from her studio. Every morning, she walks to work, painting and sculpting with unwavering focus. Now in her nineties, she continues to create with remarkable discipline, her studio filled with the rhythm of dots, colour and repetition. Her daily practice is both devotion and survival, proof that creativity, for her, has always been a way of life.
5. She seamlessly blends art and design
Kusama has long blurred the line between fine art and pop culture. Her collaborations with leading fashion houses and global brands have brought her signature dots into every day, transforming objects, architecture, and clothing into part of her artistic world. Rather than dilute her vision, these collaborations extend it, a reminder of her belief that art belongs everywhere, not just in galleries.
By Hannah Ryan, Senior Art Specialist, Manager of Speciality Auctions
Top Image (Detail): Yayoi Kusama (Japanese, born 1929) Pumpkin (YY) 1996, 22.5 x 29.5cm. $30,000-40,000
December 2025