Yayoi Kusama's TheHope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe (2019) is just one of the roughly 200 works on view during the "Yayoi Kusama" retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Sean FennessyFor the past eight decades,Yayoi Kusama has been dazzling art lovers around the world with her giant polka-dotted sculptures and immersive infinity mirror rooms.Now, a new exhibition in Australia contemplates the 95-year-old Japanese artists legacy. Titled Yayoi Kusama, the retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne is thought to be one of the largest exhibitions featuring the artists work in the world, according to theArt Newspapers Elizabeth Fortescue.The show includes a new piece called Infinity Mirrored RoomMy Heart is Filled to the Brim With Sparkling Light. Created in Kusamas signature style, the work includes mirrored balls dotted with small holes. Light emanates from the holes in various shades of blue, purple, red and green.Kusama dedicated the piece to the people of Melbourne and explained that she hopes her art sends a message of love to the world.It is love that illuminates our lives and makes life beautiful, she wrote. I aim to deliver in my art a heartfelt prayer. My hope is to experience the beauty of a world where peace and love have fully arrived. It is in celebration of this everlasting hope that I offer love to my eternal humankind.The artist produced her first infinity mirror room in 1965, according to the Smithsonians Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. These perceptual pieces use mirrors to reflect images and light, creating mesmerizing patterns. The gallery is raising funds to acquire Yayoi Kusama's Narcissus Garden (1966/2024). Tobias TitzThis kind of repetition can also be seen in many of Kusamas other pieces. She often incorporates polka dots into sculptures, paintings, fashion apparel and installations. Kusama has said that she uses dots as a way to cope with intrusive visual hallucinations that began when she was a child.Since 1977, she has voluntarily lived at a psychiatric treatment facility in Tokyo.Nowadays,art therapy is all the rage, Wayne Crothers, the gallerys senior curator of Asian art, tells theGuardians Sian Cain. But even when she was a child, she found the production of art very therapeutic.By channeling her mental health struggles into her work, Kusama was able to [harness] her obsession into something awe-inspiring, he adds. Yayoi Kusama's 16-foot-tall Dancing Pumpkin greets visitors in the foyer of the National Gallery of Victoria. Sean FennessyBeyond the infinity mirror room, the new exhibition also includes nearly 200 of Kusamas worksincluding some she made as a child in the 1930s. Curators also use photographs, sketches, letters and other archival materials to help tell the story of Kusamas long and prolific career.We wanted to show people that you dont just arrive at the point of giant pumpkins and infinity rooms instantaneously, Crothers tells the Guardian. This is a life pursuit that spans eight and a half decades. And I dont think theres ever been another artist that you could do that with, in the whole world.Other highlights include Dancing Pumpkin (2020), a 16-foot-tall bronze gourd with tentacle-like legs covered in yellow and black dots that the museum recently acquired. Narcissus Garden (1966/2024), a new version of one of Kusamas sculptural installations, immerses museumgoers in 1,400 stainless steel silver balls. The gallery is raising funds to be able to buy the piece, per the Art Newspaper. Trees lining the road in front of the gallery Sean FennessyThe exhibition also includes The Hope of the Polka Dots Buried in Infinity Will Eternally Cover the Universe (2019), an immersive experience featuring worm-shaped forms covered in yellow dots that are nearly 20 feet tall.Another piece, calledAscension of Polka Dots on the Trees, is located outside on the road in front of the gallery. To celebrate the new show, Kusama wrapped 60 plane trees in custom white and pink polka-dot fabric.The retrospective is profoundly moving, writes Sasha Grishin, an art historian at Australian National University, in theConversation. Behind the extrovert glitter that runs throughout the exhibition, there is the sound of a suppressed scream of pain and the desire to lose identity by melting into infinity through the multiplicity of images endlessly repeated.Yayoi Kusama is on view at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne through April 21, 2025.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Art, Artists, Arts, Australia, Exhibitions, Exhibits, Fashion, Japan, Museums, Painting, Pumpkin, Sculpture