Pumpkin

The pumpkin is one of the most iconic and beloved motifs of Yayoi Kusama. Kusama's Pumpkins were exhibited at the Japanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993, an installation where the artist lived in a mirrored room filled with small pumpkin sculptures. The pumpkin is at once profoundly autobiographical and surreal, with an onslaught of tiny painted dots, it is an illustration of the artist's earliest childhood experiences, where Kusama was engulfed with visual hallucinations. Her favourite thing to do in her childhood was to play in the seed farm. Surrounded by different species of plants within, she found the pumpkin uniquely fascinating - it became a universally loved subject matter that appeared in many of her works. The artist recalls, "When I was a child, one day I was walking the field. Then all of a sudden, the sky became bright over the mountains, and I saw clearly the very image I was about to paint appear in the sky. I also saw violets which I was painting multiply to cover the doors, windows, and even my body. It was then I learned the idea of self-obliteration. I immediately transferred the idea onto a canvas. It was a hallucination only the mentally-ill can experience." In 1977, plagued by these psychological hallucinations, the artist voluntarily committed herself permanently into a hospital, where she has lived since. This move was reflected in her artistic practice where she returned to painting and object making.

The jagged border in sky blue with white polka dots guides the viewer's sight into the image to wander in the intricately intermeshing world composed with polka dots and webbed patterns. Bedecked with a myriad of glistening dots juxtaposed against crystalised formations in red against a black ground, the Pumpkin is bursting with psychedelic vibrancy. This optical effect is a testament of the artist's attention to detail; each section is attended to with precision and devotion. The result is a light and playful intermingling of patterns and mesmerizing in its rhythmic quality. The hearty pumpkin is a symbol of the artist herself, but also embodies a longstanding investigation into her own self-identity. Kusama's repetition of black dots and mosaic patterns epitomizes the visual illusions she experienced throughout her life, therefore, Pumpkin is an invitation to share with her the surreal visual journey of her inner world.