The Life and Legacy of Yayoi Kusama, Artist of Infinity and Polka Dots

(SPOT.ph) Yayoi Kusama, the world-renowned Japanese artist behind iconic avant-garde installations and sculptures, has passed away at 97. Her official website confirmed that she died at a Tokyo hospital on August 14, 2026.

Famed as a pioneering artist who created hypnotic polka dots, infinite mirror rooms, and web-like Infinity Nets all around the world, Kusama reportedly continued painting until her final days. “Throughout an extraordinary lifetime devoted entirely to artistic creation, Kusama pursued an internationally acclaimed career,” read the statement by her studio. “We will carry forward Kusama's wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.”

Born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929, Kusama began experiencing vivid hallucinations as a young child. She created art inspired by her fantastical visions, featuring recurring motifs such as colorful dots and pumpkins.

To help her process the hallucinations, Kusama found an artistic concept she called “self-obliteration.” By endlessly repeating patterns across canvases, objects, and entire rooms, she sought to dissolve the boundaries between the individual and the universe. She famously said in a 1968 interview, “Our Earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment.”

Kusama moved to New York City in 1958, becoming a part of the radical art scene and pop-art movement. This is when she started her famous series, Infinity Nets, a series of paintings featuring endless, repeating loops of paint. The anti-war movement in the United States kept her active throughout the 1960s, even painting her signature dots on nude protesters as a way to advocate for unity and peace.

In the 1970s, she returned to Tokyo, where she checked into a psychiatric facility and continued to create art for the remainder of her life.

One of the most iconic motifs of Kusama was her iconic yellow and black spotted pumpkins, an expression of her lifelong fondness for the stocky, resilient vegetable. Her giant pumpkin sculpture sitting at the end of a pier on Naoshima Island has become somewhat of a pilgrimage site for travelers and art lovers worldwide.

Kusama also broke into the mainstream (and Instagram-friendly) world with her famous Infinity Mirror Rooms. First debuting in 1965, these mirror-lined spaces filled with glowing lights offer a peek into an infinite cosmos. In these installations, visitors become an active part of the experience, stepping inside to reflect on the endless nature of the universe and their small part in it.

In 2017, the dedicated Yayoi Kusama Museum also opened its doors in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It gives fans from around the world a permanent home to experience her life’s work firsthand. Today, Kusama leaves behind a body of work that includes larger-than-life installations, paintings, sculptures, poetry, novels, and even fashion collaborations.

Beyond that, her legacy bridges personal experience with universal wonder—and the inspiration that we are tiny, beautiful dots floating together in a vast universe.