Visionary Colors

In recent years, Yayoi Kusama’s paintings have featured a diverse range of color contrasts, such as copper with light blue in lines that depict the entire universe, surprising viewers with their novel expressions. This exhibition showcases representative series from her early period to the present, tracing the evolution of Kusama’s distinctive color expressions throughout her artistic career.

In Kusama’s early representative work Lingering Dream created in 1949, viewers can observe dark yet surreal colors. However, after moving to the United States in 1957 and embarking on new artistic expressions, Kusama chose ascetic color schemes in pursuit of the effect of ‘self-obliteration.’ She created paintings with repeating patterns such as monochrome nets and three-dimensional works where entire surfaces were filled with a single color. In the collages and drawings of the small works produced in the 1970s upon her return to Japan, a rich and poetic use of colors emerged. Simultaneously, in her net paintings, she began to produce many variations in the contrast between the background color and drawn lines. This expression evolved into intense color representations, some inducing optical dizziness, throughout the 1980s and 1990s. This development was further amplified in her three-dimensional works and immersive installation pieces. In her recent works, while some are vibrant and optimistic paintings brimming with primary colors and hope, there are also pieces employing a lot of black, reflecting thoughts of suicide. These diverse color expressions appear to flicker and transform rapidly, as if contrasting the light and shadow of Kusama's inner world.

L: WALL SPIRIT 1954
R: Tower 1998
Installation view at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo 1999
© YAYOI KUSAMA

L: Summer Comes to a Hat 1979
R: I'm Here, but Nothing 2000/2022
Installation view at YAYOI KUSAMA MUSEUM 2022
© YAYOI KUSAMA