Collection Postcard
Yayoi Kusama, Dots Obsession (Tobas), 2006

Yayoi Kusama
Dots Obsession (Tobas), 2006
Acrylic on canvas
194.2 x 194.2 cm

Yayoi Kusama works across a wide variety of disciplines including performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, though is best known for her sculptures, paintings and installations that feature repeating polka dots, mirrors or pumpkins. On the surface, her bold and bright works appear joyous and vibrant, but the urge to make them is tied in with dealing with trauma. For the past 44 years Kusama, now 92 years old, has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric hospital, travelling a short distance to her Tokyo studio during office hours to work on her art.

Kusama has always been open about her mental health and how making art acts as a relief for her. She attributes the central themes in her work, including the polka dot patterns, to the desire to externalise neuroticism and obsessiveness. At times these patterns burst out from her canvasses and take over entire rooms or buildings.

Kusama explore the relationship between expression, form and inner psychic states through her immersive installations also exists in her painted canvasses such as Dots Obsession (Tobas), 2006, which draws the viewer into the square space filled with dots.