Yayoi Kusama

I love finding an artist who is new to me (but in this case, someone who has been creating for many decades) but feels like an old friend, or even a part of my own psyche. She has lived in a mental institution in Japan since 1977, painting the polka dots ("infinity nets") that she sees in hallucinations. She writes, paints, sculpts, draws and stages installations and happenings of epic proportions. My heart races when I look at her work. I really do feel my molecules breaking apart, or something dramatic like that,

I found this in Juxtapoz magazine: "From paintings as a teenager, to her experimental performance work while living in NYC in the 1960s, to major and immersive installations, to her return to painting and voluntarily living in a psychiatric institution, the Tate's examination of Yayoi's amazing career is thorough and extensive. What the viewer feels leaving the exhibition is that the artist was a art project herself, presenting each project and work as an extension of her life and lifestyle."

http://www.juxtapoz.com/Current/yayoi-kusama-tate-modern-london

And Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama