Yayoi Kusama Quotes

A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colourful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots can't stay alone; like the communicative life of people, two or three polka-dots become movement ... Polka-dots are a way to infinity.

I love Damien Hirst. I respect his work a great deal, and I am happy that the polka dots I started using have become a symbol of love and peace around the world with everybody joining hands to use them in this way.

Suppose I put polka dots all over my body and then cover my background completely with polka dots. The polka dots on my body, merging with those in the background, create an optically strange scene.

I never have a plan of what I am going to draw.

Become one with eternity.
Become part of your environment.
Take off your clothes.
Forget yourself. Make love.
Self-destruction is the only
way to peace.

If there's a cat, I obliterate it by putting polka dot stickers on it. I obliterate a horse by putting polka dot stickers on it. And I obliterated myself by putting the same polka dot stickers on myself.

Polka dots are fabulous.

I think I will be able to, in the end, rise above the clouds and climb the stairs to Heaven, and I will look down on my beautiful life.

I have been using polka dots since I was a very young child. Only after that, it seems, have they been used throughout the rest of the art world.

When I paint, some things come out, and I don't know. Maybe it's because I have such talent as a painter.

New York is the place that made my and other artists' dreams come true by giving us a chance to realise our ideas and concepts. It was a great place for making a presentation of artistic creation.

I love painting so much that nothing else matters.

I believe that eyes are very important motifs. That's something that can discern the peace and love.

I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieves my illness is to keep creating art. I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live.

It doesn't matter at all for me that I work in hospital or anywhere with limited space. Every day, I'm creating new works with all my might.

With just one polka dot, nothing can be achieved. In the universe, there is the sun, the moon, the earth, and hundreds of millions of stars. All of us live in the unfathomable mystery and infinitude of the universe. Pursuing 'philosophy of the universe' through art under such circumstances has led me to what I call 'stereotypical repetition.'

The thought of continually eating something like macaroni, spat out by machinery, fills me with fear and revulsion, so I make macaroni sculptures. I make them and make them and then keep on making them, until I bury myself in the process. I call this 'obliteration.'

I want to create a thousand paintings, maybe two thousand paintings, as many as I can draw.

I have been taking every step toward the future every day through making many paintings and sculptures with my deep emotion hidden in my life.

While producing art works, illusions appear from time to time due to my mental illness. Every day is a struggle for me.

I have a flood of ideas in my mind. I just follow my vision.

I, Kusama, am the modern Alice in Wonderland.

I am putting every effort toward creating my works from morning till night on every single day.

I hope royalty continues forever. This is the thing that can contribute to peace throughout the world.

In my home country, there was a little shop with old books, but it was really in the countryside. You couldn't find English books. I found this very avant-garde American art book that had information about Georgia O'Keeffe. I was very much impressed by her.

The country of Britain is wonderful because of its royalty.

Every time I have had a problem, I have confronted it with the ax of art.

The reason I collaborate with Louis Vuitton is that Louis Vuitton is number one in the world, and I am honored to work with them.

My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings.

Painting bodies with the patterns of Kusama's hallucinations obliterated their individual selves and returned them to the infinite universe.

I will keep painting until I die.

Polka dots can't stay alone. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environments.

Certainly, I devote my energy to both telling my personal life story and seeking self- obliteration. However, I will not destroy myself through art.

I was in the U.S. about 15 years. Especially in New York. And then I came back to Japan.

Georgia O'Keeffe proposed that I live with her. She was in New Mexico then, and I wanted to be in New York.

My life is a dot lost among thousands of other dots.

People ask about art and commercialism. I think that if someone tries to sell their work at a high price, that is the wrong way of doing it.

You should create a work that is so valuable it might eventually sell at a high price, but you've got to concentrate on how you create that artwork.