Yayoi Kusama // Coffee Cup, 1991

  • Yayoi Kusama, Coffee Cup, 1991. Acrylic on canvas, 91 × 72.5 cm. A large-scale painting that transforms an everyday object into a meditation on obsession, repetition, and infinity.
    Coffee Cup, 1991
    Acrylic on canvas, 91 × 72.5 cm (35 7/8 × 28 ½ in.)
    © Yayoi Kusama. Image reproduced for educational and informational purposes only. 
    Back to Yayoi Kusama Originals page
     
    Painted in 1991, Coffee Cup reflects Kusama’s continued interest in transforming familiar, everyday objects into vehicles for her visual language of obsession and infinity. By enlarging the simple form of a domestic cup, she elevates the ordinary into the extraordinary, applying rhythmic patterning that dissolves the object into a field of repetition and abstraction.
     
    This period marked Kusama’s international resurgence, when her signature motifs were reintroduced to audiences worldwide through major exhibitions. Works such as Coffee Cup demonstrate how she could apply her distinctive patterns to even the most mundane subjects, imbuing them with symbolic weight and psychological resonance. The subject bridges domestic familiarity with a broader meditation on repetition and accumulation, aligning the personal with the universal.

  • “Accumulation is the result of my obsession, and obsession is the wellspring of my art.”

     – Yayoi Kusama

    The surface of the cup is consumed by her signature patterns, turning a simple vessel into a meditation on repetition, compulsion, and infinity. Works like this highlight her belief that art was inseparable from her inner life, with each mark acting as both an expression of her psychological state and a step towards transcendence.