Yayoi Kusama

Throughout her distinguished career, Yayoi Kusama has developed a unique and diverse body of work, deeply personal yet profoundly connecting with global audiences. Her extraordinary artistic endeavors span painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, performance, film, printmaking, installation, and environmental art, alongside literature, fashion, and product design. A hallmark of her art is the intricate lattice of paint covering her *Infinity Net* canvases, rooted in childhood hallucinations where the world appeared covered with proliferating forms.

Kusama's iconic motifs extend to the pumpkin form, which has achieved mythical status since the late 1940s, often described as a form of self-portraiture. From *Accumulation* sculptures, where everyday objects are transformed by soft-sculpture phallic forms, to monumental outdoor installations like *Narcissus Garden* (originating at the 1966 Venice Biennale), and the entrancing illusions of her *Infinity Mirror Room* installations, her work is expansive and immersive.

Her ongoing *My Eternal Soul* paintings, begun in 2009, distill the themes and obsessions characteristic of her art, abounding with imagery of eyes, faces, and cell-like structures in pulsating color combinations. More recent series, such as *Every Day I Pray for Love*, continue these singular explorations of line and form, evoking both microscopic and macroscopic universes. Kusama lives and works in Tokyo, where the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in 2017.