February 10, 2012

Spotted: Yayoi Kusama

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama was in attendance at last night's opening of her exhibition at Victoria Miro Gallery. It is the companion exhibition to Tate Modern's highly anticipated retrospective of her work, which also opened yesterday.

It was a rare and unexpected sighting as she does not travel much due to her declining health. She was a piece of art herself in her red wig and colorful outfit.

























This exhibition continues her exploration into her personal obsessions in a sensory explosion of forms and colors.























The paintings are bursting with flat images of eyes, her signature dots and abstract forms in psychedelic colors, all traced back to the hallucinations she first experienced in her childhood as a result of mental illness. Her work reflects what she experiences in her hallucinations, letting the viewer into an imaginary world that is in no other way accessible.
In "Love, Birth And Death, And Illness, And What is Happiness?" below, eyes look like fish swimming together in a marine environment with other biological forms pulsating with movement































In "Standing on the Riverbank of My Hometown I Shed Tears" below, the canvas is filled with layers of cell-like dots, eyes and eyelashes.



















In her work we experience her world through her unique vision.































































In the canal behind the gallery mirrored balls covered the water adding to the optical experience.




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