Yayoi Kusama in Paris

Yayoi Kusama was a tortured but brave soul who has struggled throughout her life to live life on her own terms and stay true to her her creative ideas and pursuits.
I first learned about her life and work during a visit to the Seattle art museum, where I saw a retrospective exhibit of her work. Two years later, while visiting Paris, I happened upon a larger than life sculpture of the artist outside of the Louis Vuitton store.

The statue of her was as tall as the buildings. She held a paintbrush in her hand and leaned toward the Louis Vuitton building where she was depicted covering it with multicolored polkadots.

I went on to learn more about her life and the influences that shaped her into the artist she became.
Yayoi Kusama was born in Japan in 1929 and grew up in a world that valued conformity and adherence to cultural norms. She knew early on that she wanted to be an artist. She experienced a variety of traumas in her home environment and used art as a refuge or safe space to steal away and immerse herself in.

Overtime she yearned to leave Japan and come to America. She arrived in New York in the late 1960s and tried to break into the art world. She was often misunderstood, shunned, and rejected for being too outlandish in her pursuits to make a name for herself. She never gave up on her desires, and was eventually given the opportunity to show her work amongst notables such as Andy Warhol and other contemporaries of her time. Her internal conflicts raged on and in the early 1970s she returned to Japan and had herself admitted to a psychiatric facility that used an art therapy approach for patient care.

Did she need psychiatric care or were her ideas just too outlandish for her contemporaries? She saw the world differently, that is sure. She has been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and has battled with depression throughout our life. She is neurodiverse, and has a variety of ticks and difficulties in reading and showing facial expressions. She turned 95 on March 22, 2024. She continues to live in the same psychiatric facility where she has spent over 50 years of her life. She leaves each day on her own to visit her art studio, where she continues to create art. Her work is the topic of many debates in the art world. Is she crazy or does she just see the world in a way that is largely different from others. Is it wrong to be different and to perceive the world in unique ways? We have to ask ourselves these questions when looking at the life and work of Yayoi Kusama.

She has eventually earned her way into the art world and has collaborated with Louis Vuitton around the world on a variety of commercial products and art.

I admire the fact that she has been willing to march to the beat of her own drum throughout her life and to continue creating art as a form of care and healing for herself.
She has not shied away from criticism and does not define herself by the harsh words of others. She is most fond of creating art with polkadots with different color schemes. She most enjoys creating art with bright colors and pumpkin motifs.

I typed her portrait these past few months and had fun adding color to prints of the finished portrait. I realized when looking at her finished portrait how necessary it was to add color to her portrait. Some people live lives more colorful than others and hers has not been one that can ever be depicted successfully in black and white.