Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan. From a young age, Yayoi Kusama experienced visual and auditory hallucinations and began creating net and polka-dot pattern pictures. After moving to New York City in the late 1950s she began making net paintings and soft sculptures, as well as organizing happenings and developing installations that made use of mirrors and lights

Her work gained widespread recognition in the late 1980s after a number of international solo exhibitions, including shows at the Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England, both taking place in 1989. She represented Japan in 1993 at the 45th Venice Biennale to much critical acclaim.

Yayoi Kusama's work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: pop art and minimalism. Her extraordinary and highly influential career spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.