IRENE
GRA 102 Journal
Designer
1. Designer's name and photo:
Yayoi Kusama is a 91 year old artist with works that range from paintings, sculptures, and much more. The primary thing that makes it noticeable that a painting was created by Yayoi Kusama, is the constant appearance of dots.
2. Sample image of their work:
3. Year born:
Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan to Shigeru Kusama. Yayoi Kasuma was born to a family, wealthy from their many plantations, but strict on their traditions.
4. What was happening in the world when they were growing up or when they were designers? :
While Yayoi Kusama was growing up, the Great Depression followed. In fact, just seven months after her birth, the infamous stock market crash of October 29, 1929 aka Black Tuesday occurred. Though hard times were present, Yayoi Kusama’s family lived well, supported by their large plantations and the fact that they lived in another country.
5. Genre or style of design:
Yayoi Kusama has a very peculiar style that she applies to almost every single art piece she creates. Her canvases and sculptures are dominated by repetitive patterns of polka-dots that seem to infest most art pieces. Yayoi has mentioned that she doesn’t have to force the polka-dots into her art. Yayoi Kusama simply states, “well...moon is a polka-dot, sun is a polka-dot, the earth where we live on is also a polka-dot...And through them, I wanted to see a philosophy of life”.
6. Influences:
A great leap in Yayoi Kusama’s art was when she became an environmental artist. Even after filling a paintings' large canvas, Yayoi Kasuma’s paintings were hardly ever contained in their quadratic, prisoning, canvases, often spilling out onto the walls and floor. These habits caused Yayoi to have hallucinations where her work would grow and grow until it swallowed reality itself and enveloped all of her surroundings, influencing her later works. This, Yayoi says, “is how I became an environmental artist”.
7. Training and/or education:
From a very young age, Yayoi already knew that she was artistically driven, and practiced several hours every day. Since her family looked down on her leniency towards the arts, Yayoi Kusama usually worked in private and alone at home. Yayoi Kusama is mostly a self taught artist, creating a huge variety of paintings, sculptures, films, and more by herself. However, she did attend Kyōto City Specialist School of Arts from the year 1948 to 1949.
8. Ideas about design or their field:
The idea of utilizing a whole room to not only display your art, but to be THE art piece never occurred to me. Yayoi Kusama’s idea to create these rooms filled and decorated with her art stemmed from her hallucinations and traumas as a child. In fact, her rooms are how her art started to be known more vastly across the globe.
9. What has this person created that other people might have seen? :
Continuing the previous statement, Yayoi Kusama’s “Rooms” are what others might be familiar with. Her most famous rooms are the “Mirror Rooms”, rooms plated with mirrors and decorated with several hanging, electrical orbs. These orbs change color from time to time, but what’s truly mesmerizing, is how this room creates the illusion of an infinite cosmos. Several artists have attempted this before, but as the viewer observing a painting, one always knew that this “infinity” was really confined to the borders of a canvas. However, with Yayoi Kusama’s “Mirror Rooms” as long as you don’t slam yourself into a wall, your surroundings will seem as an infinite void of twinkling orbs.
10. Best quote from designer:
In my opinion, Yayoi Kusama’s best quote is one that defines the purpose of the creation of the Mirror Rooms: ““well...moon is a polka-dot, sun is a polka-dot, the earth where we live on is also a polka-dot...And through them, I wanted to see a philosophy of life”. I just really enjoy how she rendered her idea of life into a single polka-dot.
11. Your thought on the designer as a person:
Though her bright, colorful attire and her neon wigs, many say that Yayoi Kusama is actually a very serious person. For me, Yayoi Kusama is someone I look up to and get inspired by from time to time. Her “Mirror Rooms” and polka-dot quote really inspired me and opened a whole new world of possibilities in the field of art.
12. Your thoughts on the work of the designer:
Never have I ever seen an environmental artist with such obsessive yet simple work. Though I can’t bear to imagine how tedious it must be to fill up a whole canvas or several sculptures of dots, I am very grateful that Yayoi Kusama took on this task as her art style. I find this style very playful, intriguing, mesmerizing, yet simple - and truly that’s what I like the most...it’s simplicity.
13. Include images:
14. Presentation:
15. Discuss why you selected this designer. If assigned, discuss why you like/dislike:
While searching the web for designers, I stumbled upon Yayoi Kusama and her peculiar creations. I wasn’t used to seeing these designs, and thus was intrigued into making the designer presentation on Yayoi Kusama and her unique style.