No other artist can have lived such an extraordinary life as Yayoi Kusama. Born in 1929 into a well off but dis-functional Japanese family she was discouraged at every stage of her early life from any art activity by her parents and at thirteen during WW2 was sent to work in a parachute factory. Nevertheless at age 19 she entered Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts but found the traditional training, and Japanese society generally, conservative, ‘feudal’ and ‘scornful of women’. A driving ambition and interest in modern art developments in the west led her, age 27, to move first briefly to Paris and Seattle and then to New York. There she became deeply immersed in the ideas of abstract expressionism and pop art and joined the world of Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and the whole sixties, male dominated, art scene. Her work ranged from her signature infinity net series of paintings to avant garde ‘happenings’ and sculptural installations incorporating mirrors lights and music. Her New York years were a mixture of huge productivity and innovation along with controversy and criticism and lack of financial support which brought about her mental breakdown and suicide attempts. By1973 she was all but forgotten and returned to Japan where she has lived ever since. Almost all of Kusama’s practice has been both impacted and motivated by her mental health. From her early childhood she has experienced hallucinations and her whole life has been an emotional struggle from which her art practice has been her refuge. Today at 92 she continues to work incessantly and to run a fully professional studio with a small team of assistants and a prodigious output of painting, sculptures and light installations as well as her writing and poetry. Her work is exhibited worldwide and in 2017 the dedicated and permanent Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Tokyo. She has been called the world’s most popular living artist. At the end of each full working day she returns to the Tokyo psychiatric hospital which she has made her home for over forty years.