Yayoi Kusama // Flowers, 1996

  • Flowers, 1996. Acrylic on canvas, 18 × 14 cm. A small-scale painting where Kusama transforms a natural motif into a field of obsessive repetition and psychological intensity.
    Flowers, 1996
    Acrylic on canvas, 18 × 14 cm (7 1/8 × 5 1/2 in.)
    © Yayoi Kusama. Image reproduced for educational and informational purposes only.
     
    Painted in 1996, Flowers reflects Kusama’s ongoing transformation of natural motifs into symbols of psychological intensity and universal resonance. While flowers have long been associated with beauty, delicacy, and impermanence in art history, Kusama reimagined them through her distinctive language of repetition and bold colour. Here, the intimate scale invites close viewing, while the rhythmic application of acrylic dissolves the subject into a field of obsessive patterning.
     
    By the mid-1990s, Kusama had re-established herself as a major international figure, with her works spanning painting, sculpture, and immersive installations. Pieces such as Flowers demonstrate how even small canvases carried the same force as her monumental projects, translating themes of obsession, accumulation, and infinity into concentrated form. The floral subject bridges her organic motifs with her larger explorations of psychological depth, aligning the personal with the universal.

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

    – Yayoi Kusama

    n works like Flowers, Kusama showed how even the smallest formats could carry the weight of her vision. By taking a familiar and delicate motif from nature and reworking it through obsessive repetition, she revealed the fine line between beauty and compulsion. Each brushstroke becomes both an act of control and a release, reflecting how her art channels personal struggle into universal imagery.