A Colorful New Comic-Book Biography of Artist Yayoi Kusama Follows Her Trials and Triumphs.
For the first time, the remarkable Japanese artist’s life is told in comic-book form. Written and illustrated by Elisa Macellari, a Thai-Italian artist, the book tells the story of Kusama’s coming of age in Japan as she struggled with hallucinations and obsessive behaviors.
Kusama channeled those struggles into a career that began in Japan and—against her parents’ will—took her to New York City, where she flourished. In the panels, Macellari empathetically describes Kusama’s fears and anxieties, exacerbated by her unfaithful father and overbearing mother, and the refuge that art provided her. The graphic novel also tracks Kusama’s early years in the United States, as she found likeminded artists in Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Joseph Cornell, and Salvador Dali, and examines how she expanded her drawing and painting practices into installations, performances, clothing designs, and more.