Do you like polka dots? If you do, you are in good company with Yayoi Kusama, a visual artist and writer who is, inter alia, renowned for her signature polka dots, which are derived from her hallucinations at a young age.
According to Wikipedia, "Throughout her career she has worked in a wide variety of media, including painting, collage, soft sculpture, performance art, and environmental installations, most of which exhibit her thematic interest in psychedelic colors, repetition, and pattern. A precursor of the pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements, Kusama influenced her contemporaries such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and George Segal and exhibited works alongside the likes of them.
In 1957, she moved to the United States, settling down in New York City where she produced a series of paintings influenced by the abstract expressionist movement. Switching to sculpture and installation as her primary media, Kusama became a fixture of the New York avant-garde during the early 1960s where she became associated with the pop art movement. Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, Kusama came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots.
Although largely forgotten after departing the New York art scene in the early 1970s, Kusama is now acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, and an important voice of the avant-garde."
Her obsession has been transposed onto a plethora of objects such as pumpkins. It has also been used to create visuals of vast fields ("infinity nets", as she called them) of polka dots as far as the eye can see. In her Mirror/Infinity room installations, "purpose-built rooms lined with mirrored glass contain scores of neon-colored balls, hanging at various heights above the viewer. Standing inside on a small platform, an observer sees light repeatedly reflected off the mirrored surfaces to create the illusion of a never-ending space."
She also uses her dots to cover completely (obliterate), for example, white giant tulips such that they are 'wiped out' by colourful dots and made 'invisible' in a white room.
Her current exhibition "Life Is The Heart of a Rainbow" is being held at the National Gallery Singapore till 3 September 2017. Word has it that it will be moving on to Melbourne next.
At a personal level, I think that art is symbolic and potential powerful if clearly defined and communicated succinctly by the artist. The tangible artwork is the outward form of the heart and soul of the artist, if you will.
So first of all, we have to understand (with the artist's help) as to what is the story or message. Then, it is for the receiver to percolate and interpret for himself what that means to him.
For a grander scheme of what art entails, please click here for The Value and Importance of the Arts and the Humanities in Education and Life By Barbara Ernst Prey.
An excerpt from the article is as follows:
"A lot of what artists do is tell stories. They help us make sense of our world, and they broaden our experience and understanding. The arts enable us to imagine the unimaginable, and to connect us to the past, the present, and the future, sometimes simultaneously.
Great literature, films and visual art transport us to different places and cultures; great art even allows us to see ourselves and our own community through a different lens. To see King Lear performed on stage helps us confront our own complicated family dynamics. Likewise, if we study the faces captured in Dorothea Lange’s black and white portraits from the 1930s and 1940s, we can better empathize with those who endured the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.
I’ve heard biographer and journalist Walter Isaacson say that science can give us empirical facts and try to tie them together with theories, but it’s the humanists and the artists who turn them into narratives with moral, emotional and spiritual meanings. He’s right, of course. Art gives meaning to the data science provides." --Dr. Mitchell B. Reiss
Based on a recent e-mail interview with The Business Times (Source: Business Times, 9 June 2017), Kusama said:
"Over the years of dedication and struggling, I have aged. But I am willing to continue this path and do my best to create art to leave the message of 'love forever' to the young generations.
"Since childhood I had a strong will of becoming an artist and worked very hard to create paintings and sculptures. I was motivated by the hopes to deliver the message of my life through exhibiting my art.
"Today, the world is threatened by terrorism and war. So many people suffer from widening disparity between the rich and the poor. I am moved that the younger generations are sincere to themselves, trying to create a world of warmth for peace and for those who suffer. I stake my life on my art to deepen people's hope for their lives and for world peace and distribution of love."
Let the Arts brighten up your day and help you to live life in a fuller and more uplifted fashion.
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