Yayoi Kusama, Japanese artist who turned hallucinations into art, dies at 97

Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama, who transformed hallucinations into art ​and was known for her obsessive dot-covered ‌paintings and pumpkin motifs, has died at the age of 97.The announcement, made on her official website, said ​she died on August 14 but did ​not give a cause of death.In 2024, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne hosted an immersive retrospective of Kusama's work. By April 2025, it had become the most visited exhibition in Australian history, with more than 500,000 people attending. Today, one of Kusama's sculptures, titled Flowers that Bloom in the Cosmos, can be seen outside the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, in front of the Naala Badu building, which opened in 2022.Kusama's sculpture outside AGNSW: Flowers that Bloom in the Cosmos. (Supplied: AGNSW/Zan Wimberley)Frustrated with ⁠the confining nature of Japanese society, Kusama ​left for New York at 27, where she ​quickly made a name for herself with her paintings, inspired by hallucinations of flashing lights, dots and flowers she ​had seen since childhood.She also wrote, took ​part in anti-war activities during the 1960s, and reportedly influenced ‌artists ⁠such as Andy Warhol.Kusama, who was candid about her mental health struggles, said New York gave her neuroses. Around 1977, a few years after ​returning to ​Japan, she ⁠voluntarily entered a mental hospital and lived there for decades, being driven ​to her nearby studio each morning."I ​still ⁠see hallucinations even now," Kusama said in 2017."Dots come flying everywhere — on my dress, the floor, ⁠things ​I'm carrying, throughout the house, ​the ceiling. And I paint them."Reuters/ABC