Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s powerful life lesson hidden in her famous polka dots: ‘Return to the infinite universe...’

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, whose dazzling polka dots became one of the most recognisable signatures in modern art, has died at 97. But beyond the colourful paintings, sculptures and immersive installations lies a deeply personal story of survival, persistence and self-expression. Kusama transformed experiences of fear and isolation into an artistic language that reached millions around the world. Her famous idea of obliteration also carried a profound message about the individual, the universe and finding meaning through creativity.

Yayoi Kusama dies at 97 after a lifetime dedicated to art

Kusama died on August 14 at a hospital in Tokyo, her studio said Thursday. She was 97. The Yayoi Kusama Studio did not specify the cause of death. According to the studio, Kusama continued painting until her final days and remained committed to exploring what it described as “forever love and eternal soul”. The studio said it would carry forward her wishes and use art to bring “hope and strength” to people around the world, reported AP.

One of Japan’s most respected contemporary artists, Kusama was exhibited at major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, as well as Museum Ludwig in Germany. Her signature repetitive motifs became central to her visual identity. She worked with nets, swirls, worm-like forms and, most famously, dots. They appeared across canvases, sculptures and installations, often creating psychedelic worlds filled with vibrant colours and seemingly endless repetition.

What Yayoi Kusama’s famous dots really meant

For many people, Kusama’s polka dots are instantly recognisable. But for the artist, they represented something much deeper than a distinctive artistic style. In an interview with Index magazine, Kusama explained her idea of obliteration through the act of covering objects and even herself with polka dots. She described putting stickers on animals and eventually using the same process on herself.

The idea became central to understanding her work. In an interview with Bomb magazine, when asked what obliteration meant, Kusama explained that “obliterating one’s individual self” meant returning to the “infinite universe”.

That idea offers one of the most powerful lessons hidden behind her famous dots: we are only a small part of something much larger than ourselves. Her repeated dots could make an individual object appear to disappear into its surroundings. In the same way, Kusama's art explored the relationship between the self and something infinite.

Art became Yayoi Kusama’s way of surviving

Behind Kusama’s colourful world was a difficult childhood. Born on March 22, 1929, in Matsumoto City in central Japan, she grew up amid family conflict and described being overwhelmed by fear from an early age. Yet art gave her a way to process those experiences. In a 2014 interview with Vogue Japan, Kusama said that drawing and making art had helped her keep going. She described discovering her love of art as the reason she had been able to survive and continue living.

That relationship with art remained remarkably consistent throughout her life. For Kusama, painting was not simply a profession. It became a deeply personal practice through which she could express experiences that were difficult to put into ordinary words.

From traditional Japanese painting to becoming a global art icon

Kusama’s artistic journey began in Japan. During her school years, she was mentored by Japanese painter Kakei Hibino. She later studied traditional Japanese painting at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts. But she eventually became frustrated with what she saw as the restrictive nature of Japanese society. In 1957, Kusama left Japan for New York. The move marked a major turning point in her career.

She soon began exhibiting her net paintings and soft sculptures, while also organising body-painting events and happenings. Her work became increasingly experimental, pushing beyond traditional ideas of what art could be. She also created happenings protesting the Vietnam War and is often said to have influenced Andy Warhol. Alongside visual art, Kusama explored writing, producing fiction and poetry.

Kusama continued creating despite personal struggles

Life in New York brought artistic recognition, but it also came with personal difficulties. Kusama’s mental health declined, and she eventually returned to Japan in 1973. Four years later, she voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital, where she continued to live. Her daily routine remained closely connected to her art. She was driven from the hospital to her nearby studio each morning, where she continued working.

That routine became an important part of her extraordinary longevity as an artist. Even as her circumstances changed, she continued returning to the studio and creating. Her career eventually brought international recognition and numerous honours, including Japan’s Order of Culture and France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

The life lesson behind Yayoi Kusama’s dots

Kusama’s work can be admired for its striking colours and hypnotic repetition, but the story behind those dots makes the art even more powerful. She took deeply personal experiences and transformed them into paintings, sculptures and immersive spaces that invited audiences to think about identity, infinity and their place in the world.

Her explanation of obliteration perhaps captures that philosophy best. By allowing the individual self to disappear into an infinite universe, Kusama suggested that our existence is connected to something far larger than ourselves. And after nearly a century of life and art, her final act remained consistent with that belief. She kept painting until her final days, leaving behind a body of work built around one enduring idea: even a single dot can become part of something infinite.