Alice in Wonderland

A new version of the classic book Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll came out a few weeks ago. Nothing unusual in that obviously but what made me notice is the new illustrations by Yayoi Kusama. After a little digging, I found that she has an exhibition on at the Tate in London at the moment. This is one of those moments when you find an artist who is exciting and wonder why you had never heard of them before.

Her art practice encapsulates the whole spectrum of media including, film, painting, drawing, mixed media and amazing instalation pieces. It must have been hard growing up in the 1930's and 40's in Japan and wanting to express her artistic tendencies.

 Some of her work is hard to fully appreciate as a flat image, especially with her large soft sculptures known as 'Accumulations" and her 'Infinity Net' paintings with large repeated patterns. It seems very obsessive and a confusing way of working with such an intensity of over decoration. Although, now knowing that she has voluntarily, since 1977, been living in a psychiatric hospital, goes some way to explain her compulsive and obsessive relationship with her art.

 


 She went over to America in the late 1950's and was exhibiting alongside some of the most influential arists of their day, like Andy Warhol, whom she may or may not have influenced in some way. As New York in the 1960's was a mix of sex drugs and rock and roll, she organised parties where they would paint each others bodies with her trademark polka dots. Never one to participate apparently, but as a curator was where she was content. The full article from The Observer, can be found here.