Id been thinking a lot about the great Yayoi Kusama lately, about how indefatigable she was. Now she’s passed away at the age of 97 and I wished I’d written about her sooner.
The Polka Dot Queen is dead. She represented modernity in art like few others, painting garish polka dots and pumpkins onto pretty much any surface she could as a means of coping with trauma. From childhood, around the age of ten, she’d experienced hallucinations, and suffered an abusive childhood, not to mention enduring the Second World War, so her bright colours and vivacious rebellion were her coping mechanism.
She became a global icon. Her Infinity Mirrors rooms, full of patterns, curtains, inflatable ,pumpkins, neon and mirrors, attracted millions of visitors. She stayed active all her life, painting into her last days.She was some kind of alchemist for sure.
Hit The North 