Yayoi Kusama // Window, 1979

  • Yayoi Kusama, Window, 1979. Acrylic on canvas, 45 × 38 cm. Signed and dated. An intimate post-New York painting reflecting her shift to contemplative, studio-based practice in Japan.
    Window, 1979
    Acrylic on canvas, 45 × 38 cm (17 3/4 × 15 in.)
    © Yayoi Kusama. Image reproduced for educational and informational purposes only.
     
    Painted in 1979, Window reflects Kusama’s exploration of intimacy and repetition during her post-New York years in Japan. Having stepped back from the avant-garde performances and large-scale environments that defined the 1960s, she focused on studio-based works that conveyed psychological depth through modest scale and intense surface treatment. The use of acrylic on canvas demonstrates her continued interest in flatness and pattern, evoking a sense of both architectural framing and inner perspective suggested by the title.
     
    This period marked a consolidation of Kusama’s mature style: recurring motifs of accumulation and rhythmic form were translated into smaller canvases that bridged her earlier radical practice with the inward-looking vision of her later decades.

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

    – Yayoi Kusama

    This period of Kusama’s practice demonstrates how repetition and accumulation were not simply formal devices but deeply personal strategies for navigating her inner world. Through smaller, introspective canvases such as Window, she transformed ordinary surfaces into fields of obsessive pattern, blurring the boundary between structure and emotion. These works underscore her belief that art could both express and contain her psychological struggles, turning fixation into a source of enduring creativity.