Yayoi Kusama

I would like to try harder to establish my thought and philosophy strongly and to go back to the universe with my love.

Basically, my idea and explorations on fashion have not changed; however, I believe I'm going state-of-the-art on fashion.

With just one polka dot, nothing can be achieved. In the universe, there is the sun, the moon, the earth, and hundreds of millions of stars. All of us live in the unfathomable mystery and infinitude of the universe. Pursuing 'philosophy of the universe' through art under such circumstances has led me to what I call 'stereotypical repetition.'

Since my childhood, I have always made works with polka dots. Earth, moon, sun and human beings all represent dots; a single particle among billions.

Painting bodies with the patterns of Kusama's hallucinations obliterated their individual selves and returned them to the infinite universe.

I was in the U.S. about 15 years. Especially in New York. And then I came back to Japan.

My mother was against me being an artist. She just wanted me to marry a rich man.

I want to become more famous, even more famous.

I love Damien Hirst. I respect his work a great deal, and I am happy that the polka dots I started using have become a symbol of love and peace around the world with everybody joining hands to use them in this way.

I love painting so much that nothing else matters.

I think I will be able to, in the end, rise above the clouds and climb the stairs to Heaven, and I will look down on my beautiful life.

When I was a child, I used to paint intently. The older I become, and the closer death approaches, the brighter my life gets day by day.