Transforming Trauma: A Day in the Life of Yayoi Kusama
“I transformed my trauma into art.”
— Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929 in Japan. Since childhood, she suffered from visual and aural hallucinations. Her childhood was traumatic, wedged between her parents. Kusama’s mother forced her to spy on her father and his lovers. Kusama describes that “because my mother was very angry it made even the idea of sex very traumatic for me. My work is always about overcoming that bad experience. […] I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieves my illness is to keep creating art. I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live.” Known worldwide for her exhibitions that challenge space and perception (and also look really good as backdrops for Instagram photos), Kusama has won the Asahi Prize, the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres , and 18th Praemium Imperiale award for painting amongst others. She was the subject of Near Equal Yayoi Kusama: I Adore Myself, a documentary film by Takako Matsumoto as well another documentary Infinity by director Heather Lenz. As detailed by the Guggenheim Museum, one of Kusama’s most important bodies of work—Infinity Nets, all-white, patterned, monochromatic paintings, allude to her hallucinations of being overcome by endless netting. Since 1977, she has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric…
