Yayoi Kusama Prints // 1980s

The 1980s and 1990s marked a significant period of transition and reinvention in Yayoi Kusama’s career. Having returned to Japan in the mid-1970s, she gradually re-established herself within the art world, balancing her writing with a renewed focus on painting, sculpture, and printmaking. While her practice retained its foundations in repetition, infinity, and psychological intensity, this era saw Kusama refining her motifs into highly recognisable visual statements.

 

Throughout the 1980s, Kusama produced a series of prints and works on paper that distilled her long-standing fascination with organic forms such as flowers, butterflies, and shellfish. These images were charged with bold colour and graphic clarity, merging natural subjects with her obsessive patterns. By the 1990s, the pumpkin emerged as a dominant motif, encapsulating both childhood nostalgia and her exploration of comfort, endurance, and infinity.