Yayoi Kusama // My Life, 2014

  • Yayoi Kusama, My Life, 2014. Acrylic on canvas, 194 × 194 cm. A monumental late work combining autobiographical reflection with Kusama’s signature language of pattern and repetition.
    My Life, 2014
    Acrylic on canvas, 194 × 194 cm (76 3⁄8 × 76 3⁄8 in.)
    © Yayoi Kusama. Image reproduced for educational and informational purposes only. 
    Painted in 2014, My Life belongs to Kusama’s late body of work in which she merged her signature visual language with deeply autobiographical themes. The monumental square canvas reflects both the confidence of her mature practice and the personal reflections that defined her later years. Bold colours, organic shapes, and rhythmic repetition converge to create a composition that feels both playful and profound, encapsulating the dualities that run through her career.
     
    The title My Life underscores the work’s confessional quality. Kusama’s art has always been inseparable from her psychological experiences, and here she makes that connection explicit, transforming the canvas into a statement of identity and resilience. While rooted in her private world, the composition speaks universally, evoking ideas of growth, struggle, continuity, and transcendence.

  • “My artwork is an expression of my life, particularly of my mental illness.”

     – Yayoi Kusama

    By 2014, Kusama was firmly established as a global icon, her retrospectives drawing millions of visitors and her motifs entering the cultural mainstream. Works such as My Life demonstrate how her late practice balanced self-reflection with universal themes, uniting the personal and the collective in a language of dots, patterns, and radiant colour.