LONDON | YAYOI KUSAMA @ VICTORIA MIRO

If there is one artist whose work constantly intrigues in its uniqueness or abstract simplicity it is Yayoi Kusama. It is much more than just dots, it is a seamless manipulation of something so simple which she makes even more remarkable. An astonishing presentation of art that inspires and enchants. Her vivid softness, makes even the coldest of materials fluid. Willing them to bend and conform without breaking their hardness or losing the core of what they are outside of the art itself.

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It is all the more beguiling.

And when you consider that for four decades Kusama lived in a psychiatric institution, how long this sweet success is finally being hers in the later part of her life, how she resonates with us separated by decades and life experiences. You scrape the surface of who she is as a person, an artist; this is a case of passion, pure unadulterated passion for one’s convictions.

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Despite a privileged life growing up, much of Kusama’s childhood was unhappy; her father was a philanderer and Kusama was often placed at the middle of that situation. Growing up in a time when a good marriage defined a woman’s life, Kusama was discouraged by her mother from drawing but she was not deterred. In a sense looking from the outside in, she sought solace in moments where her internalisation blossomed into art far beyond our comprehension, but in her own way, she brings us within, to reside int a place of poetry, deep emotion and a rawness in beauty.

Yayoi Kusama at the Victoria Miro Gallery; if you can get tickets to this exhibition, do so without fail. I have long been a fan of Kusama’s work; I remember her looming statue and eponymous window in Selfridges those many years back… Hers is the prism through which art is elevated.

I WANT YOUR TEARS TO FLOW WITH THE WORDS I WROTE- YAYOI KUSAMA @ VICTORIA MIRO- TICKETS HERE. FREE TIMED ENTRY