COLLECTION NAME:
Undergraduate Thesis Collection
Record
Title:
Yayoi Kusama's Art as Therapy: Creative Catharsis
Creator:
Hawk, Annah
Subject:
Thesis (B.F.A.) -- Art History
Subject:
Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Art History
Rights:
Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Abstract:
"From the beginning of her career, Yayoi Kusama (1929-present) has continued to harness her obsessive anxiety and hallucinations through the creation of painting, sculpture, installation, performance art, film, and writing as a means of liberation from her own schizophrenic tendencies. Kusama's work offers a therapeutic outlet as she employs repetitive patterns, organic motifs, and immersive elements to regain a sense of control over the effects of her neurosis. By bringing her visions into a tangible reality, Kusama attempts to cope with her mental illness, while simultaneously offering the viewers the opportunity to experience the sensation of fading into the environments she creates. From Kusama's meteoric rise to fame in the 1960s to her more recent reemergence into the world of contemporary art, her work has been viewed in relation to her psychiatric condition. However, Kusama's true intentions have caused speculation amongst scholars and critics alike, begging the question: is the motivation behind Kusama's oeuvre calculated or curative? The creation of a persona to survive in the art world as a female, Japanese artist is not mutually exclusive of the fact that Kusama's art is therapeutic. A psychoanalytic look into the artist’s traumatic childhood indicates a strong correlation between her art and the abuse, fear, and mind-altering hallucinations that she endured. Kusama's insatiable need to create allows her to escape the often-torturous effects of her neurosis." --Abstract
Keywords: anxiety, artistic persona, art therapy, feminism, hallucination, Japan, obsession, psychoanalysis, repetitive patterns, Yayoi Kusama
Keywords: anxiety, artistic persona, art therapy, feminism, hallucination, Japan, obsession, psychoanalysis, repetitive patterns, Yayoi Kusama
Publisher:
Savannah, Georgia: Savannah College of Art and Design
Date:
2019-05
Format:
1 online resource: 1 PDF (Thesis, 97 pages, color illustrations)