@myvividmelbourne: Behind all those colourful dots was a story far more complicated than most of us realised. ♥️ Yayoi Kusama, one of the world’s most recognisable artists, passed away in Tokyo on 14 August at the age of 97. Her studio announced the news this week, sharing that, remarkably, she continued painting until her final days. If you visited her incredible NGV exhibition in Melbourne, you probably remember the endless mirrors, giant pumpkins, glowing rooms and, of course, dots everywhere. But those dots weren’t simply a style she invented to become famous. Kusama began experiencing vivid hallucinations as a child, including visions where patterns seemed to spread across her surroundings. Instead of trying to escape them, she began drawing and painting what she saw. Repetition became a way of processing her experiences, eventually developing into the dots and endless patterns that would define her work. Her journey to becoming one of the world’s most celebrated contemporary artists wasn’t straightforward. She moved to the United States in 1957 and immersed herself in New York’s avant-garde art scene, developing her Infinity Net paintings, sculptures, performances and eventually the mirrored environments that became synonymous with her name. After returning to Japan, Kusama voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital in 1977. She continued living there while creating art from a nearby studio for decades. And decades later, that extraordinary journey found its way to Melbourne. Her NGV retrospective brought together around 200 works spanning almost her entire life. By the time the doors closed, more than 570,000 people had experienced it, making it the most visited ticketed exhibition in NGV history. What appeared to be a world of dots, mirrors, pumpkins and colour was really the visual language of a woman who spent almost her entire life turning what she saw and experienced into art. 97 years of life. Nearly nine decades of creating. And she kept painting right until the end. ❤️ Rest in infinity, Yayoi Kusama. ♾️♥️ 1929–2026

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Sunday 30 August 2026 03:01:10 GMT