Vibrantly Grey

22 March, 1929

Celebrating her 95th birthday today, one of the more colourful characters of the Japanese art world, artist, writer and poet Kusama Yayoi (草間 彌生) who was born on 22 March 1929 in Matsumoto (松本市), Nagano Prefecture (長野県). https://youtu.be/Els2gFMTU-Y

A precursor of the pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements, Kusama influenced contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg, and although throughout her career she has worked in a wide variety of media, including painting, collage, sculpture, performance art, and environmental installations, most all of her works exhibit her well known and distinctive thematic interest in psychedelic colours, repetition and pattern.

Although largely forgotten after departing the New York art scene in the early 1970s, Kusama is now acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, and an important voice of the avant-garde.

In 2017, the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Shinjuku, Tokyo, featuring her works.

You can learn more about her life and work here: https://youtu.be/vbmsL7tSPc4