Looking back at her biography and past works could offer a deeper understanding of her obsessive art. Yayoi Kusama (born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan) is one of the most influential art figures of the past century, inspiring personalities such as Andy Warhol or Yoko Ono, among other artists, fashion designers, filmmakers or architects. Her work, deeply rooted in the artist’s own fears and troubled past, is edgy and obsessive, with dots as a reoccurring motif. Following an abusive childhood, she studied the Japanese art of Nihonga painting in Kyoto before moving to New York in 1957. Here she experimented with different movements, from pop art to the hippie counterculture. In 1973 she moved back to Japan and in 1977 she voluntarily admitted herself to a hospital where she has spent the rest of her life.