What to Expect from Yayoi Kusama at the Seattle Art Museum

87-year-old Yayoi Kusama has been creating art ever since she was a young girl, growing up in Matsumoto, Nagano. At the age of ten, she began to experience vivid hallucinations of vast fields of dots, and bright flashes of light. These hallucinations would eventually inspire some of her most celebrated works of art, like her exploration of the concepts of infinity and “self-obliteration.” Here are some themes and works you can expect to see at from upcoming Yayoi Kusama at the Seattle Art Museum, where her exhibition runs .

Infinity Nets

Kusama describes her series of paintings titled, Infinity Nets, as being without beginning, end or center. Covering entire canvases in repetitive, monochromatic net patterns, Kusama’s paintings almost look like intricate latticework. Viewers are struck by the effect of her strokes, which are all at once contained by the canvas, and seemingly endlessly stretching out beyond it.

Infinity Mirrored Room

A small, mirror-lined chamber featuring seemingly endless LED lights, Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room invites viewers to become a part of her work, to participate in infinity. As the lights in the chamber bounce from mirror to mirror, they accumulate and expand exponentially, taking the viewer with them.

The Obliteration Room

In Kusama’s “The Obliteration Room,” the artist replicates a modern American living room, and paints it entirely in white. As visitors enter the space, they are each handed a set of brightly colored dots, and invited to stick them to any surface they please. With each passing day, the white room is slowly obliterated, transformed into a blur of color.

Dots Obsession – Love Turned into Dots

In this 2006 work, massive, red dotted balloons hang from the ceiling, lie on the floor, and are suspended in the space in-between. Kusama also sometimes appears in a video projection, dressed in red, covered in dots and eating flowers. With this display, Kusama endeavors to show how easily individuals can become lost in the fabric of the universe.

Image via seattleartmuseum.org.