YAYOI KUSAMA
Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist born in 1929 who uses her art to express the anxiety she feels. The story of how she got there is compelling, and it gives us all a better understanding of why she makes such peculiar visual creations.
This section will give you everything you need to know about Yayoi Kusama, including her history and motivations.
Whitney Museum of American Art
Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist born in 1929 who uses her art to express the anxiety she feels. The story of how she got there is compelling, and it gives us all a better understanding of why she makes such peculiar visual creations.
This section will give you everything you need to know about Yayoi Kusama, including her history and motivations.
You may be wondering why Yayoi Kusama's art is so popular. There are a few reasons for that.
For one, she's still alive—she was born in 1929 and is now in her 90s—and she's prolific, with some new artwork creating headlines every few months. Artist living into their 90s isn’t exactly common. Yayoi Kusama herself has had to overcome many obstacles to get where she is today, including prejudice on the basis of gender and race as well as mental health issues (she’s been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and depression). She also identifies as a feminist artist which makes her very popular in today’s climate. Overall, her story makes her more interesting than many other artists who have passed away long ago.
In addition to being an incredibly resilient person, Yayoi Kusama makes large-scale installations where people can interact with her artworks such as the Infinity Mirrors exhibition which traveled across North America in 2017-2018 or The Obliteration Room which we explore in the video that accompanies this article. These pieces are designed to be photographed which means that social media is full of pictures of people posing in front of them; giving even more exposure to this quirky Japanese artist!
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The infinity rooms are small but look big because of the infinite reflections. They are cube-shaped, mirrored boxes that a viewer enters. Once inside, the viewer can almost fully immerse themselves in the experience by walking around and experiencing the different visual effects created by the mirrors and the lighting. The effect of the installation is one of being in an endless space with not just one but many reflections of yourself or your group. The most popular of these installations is Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, in which viewers encounter LED lights that appear to go on forever as they walk around them.
In addition to her infinity room installations, Kusama has also done work with mirrored sculptures (or environments) that are usually placed outdoors. She did one such piece called Narcissus Garden at the 1966 Venice Biennale. In this piece, she set up mirrored spheres in the garden where attendees were invited to wander around.
If you're looking for some inspiration for your own Motion graphics project or artwork, there's no better place to start than with Kusama's pieces. You can do it by emulating her use of constant mind-bending repetition, scale, and contrast to represent for example a human against the scale of the entire universe, nudity to make fun of absurd politics or even huge distorted pumpkins to allude to Kusama herself. I love how she creates these immersive experiences that get people thinking about the world in new ways.
The elements that make her a perfect muse for any motion design artist are:
- Constant mind-bending repetition Scale and contrast (ie representing a human against the scale of the entire universe)
- Huge distorted pumpkins to allude to Kusama herself
- Nudity to make fun of absurd politics The questions she poses about society are just as relevant today as they were decades ago—maybe even more relevant—and we can learn a lot from her work about how to portray existentialist fear and anxiety through animation.
Yayoi Kusama's work is inspiring because it reflects her own life and experiences. Her art is something she has used as both a form of expression and a way to connect with others who have gone through similar struggles with mental health.
Check out the video to learn more about Yayoi Kusama and how she uses art as therapy.