Yayoi Kusama, who is generally recognized to be one of Japan’s greatest living artists, began to create avant–garde art after moving to New York in 1957. She held joint exhibitions with leading Western artists of the day such as Yves Klein, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol, and became a prominent figure on the international art scene, playing an important role in the growth of the Pop Art movement. In 1993, Kusama became the first female Japanese artist to represent Japan at the Venice Biennale, firmly establishing her status as a major figure in the art world both in the West and in Japan.

Flowers have always been one of Kusama’s favored themes. They symbolize the flowering and withering of life, celebration and grief, hardness and softness. These fragile, organic, bountiful life–forms sprawl all over the paintings, dominating both the canvas and the fantastical world that the artist is seeking to create. In her autobiography, Yayoi Kusama noted that: “ever since she was a child, nature, the universe, humanity, blood, flowers and all sort of other things have left deep impressions – in a magical, terrifying or mysterious way – on her visual and auditory perception and on her heart. She said that they had entwined themselves around her life, never letting her escape.”

One feature which is common to all of Yayoi Kusama’s paintings is the great freedom with which dots, lines and colors are arranged. The steadily increasing dots and interleaved networks combine to create a miniature universe with limitless extensibility. Kusama sees the net–like structure as symbolizing the richly organic essence of life. In this 1983 work, “Flowers” the artist makes use of highly detailed brushstrokes and rich colors to depict flowers that are blooming with riotous abandon, portraying a tenacious, vigorous life force.