Born in Nagano Prefecture in 1929. Since childhood, she has experienced visual and auditory hallucinations in which everything she sees is covered in polka dots and dogs and flowers speak to her in human language. She began to draw these things to escape from this fear.

She was active in Japan, holding her first solo exhibition in 1954, but moved to the U.S. in 1957. Since then, she has established herself as an avant-garde artist with diverse developments such as net painting, soft sculpture, installations and surprises using mirrors and electric decorations. We find an artistic philosophy of self-annihilation through obsessive repetition and proliferation of a single motif. Upon returning to Japan in 1973, she expanded her activities to include the publication of novels and poetry collections, and in 1983 she won the 10th Wild Age Newcomer Award. Since 1994, she has been working on outdoor sculptures all over the world, and her works can be seen throughout these cities’ streets.

She has worked on her Mirror Room series repeatedly since 1965, with a piece in the form of a cubic room lined with mirrors on both sides. The plush polka-dot dolls, which resemble phallic images, are infinitely amplified by the mirror reflections, creating a sparkling kaleidoscopic immersive experience for the viewer. At the same time, the viewer is overcome with the sensation that the boundaries between self and other are disappearing through repetition and proliferation. In other words, it is a work that reflects the very artistic philosophy of “self-annihilation” that Kusama sought.