Thank you to Netgally and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this graphic novel, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Okay, so I have a confession. I was gifted an eARC of this quite awhile ago, but it never loaded properly. However, my library finally bought a copy so I got to read it and it was great!

I really enjoyed learning about Yayoi Kusama, her life, and art. I already knew a bit about her from my Art History classes in university, however, this was great because it went a bit more in depth than my general modern art history course. It was incredible to watch her go from Japan to New York in the 1960s. I probably would have been terrified.

The art was great and it really highlights Kusama's artistic sensibilities and style. She's really creative and unique. It also discusses her challenges with mental health, identity, being a woman in a man's world. It was really well done.

I have always had a passing interest in Kusama. She has lived a very eclectic life. I greatly enjoyed this book and getting to learn more information about her!

Safety missing the opportunity to download, I purchased this book. I was not disappointed. The story is great and the illustrations are on point

Without having to go through her extensive biography, this graphic novel helped me get to know Kusama very well. This serves as a reminder that she, not Warhol, was the first pop art icon. It described her time in New York City, which had been long forgotten, before she returned to Japan and became the well-known Kusama of today. However, I was hoping the book would delve more into her body of work and how she developed as an artist. Macellari, as seen by both her writings and her paintings, is a gifted storyteller.

The artwork was lovely and I was always interest in knowing Kusuma's life and this helped a lot. She really had an amazing life and this book portrayed that well.

A graphic novel about the life of a contemporary artist seems a very fitting way to tell that story. I have reviewed another in this series, about Jackson Pollock, and found it interesting and informative. Yayoi Kusama is an artist that I am minimally acquainted with compared to Pollock, and this story was an excellent introduction to her life and work.

Macellari has an obvious enthusiasm for her subject and for Kusama's work, and gives us an unblinking account of the artist, including the mental health issues that drive Kusama's creative impulses, something which the artist has always been open about. After reading this I researched Kusama a little, and found that she is still producing art well into her nineties, a staggeringly long career for somebody who has managed to stay at the cutting edge of the art world for nearly 50 years. I thought this was a very worthwhile read and an enlightening introduction to an artist I was not aware of before.

I thought the artwork was really beautiful in this graphic novel. I’m a big fan of graphic biographies, so this was a real treat.

Kusama is a beautifully illustrated look at the life of artist Yayoi Kusama. Those who are not familiar with her art will become well-acquainted with her signature polka dots while also gaining insight into the events that shaped her work. This is a graphic novel that sensitively portrays Kusama and her ground-breaking artistry.

I forgot to download and read this, but I managed to get to this by buying it. And it was really great! Worth the money spent, I know these reviews should be more informative for people before buying it/publishing it, but I had to write a few things about it even after it was published. The art is really nice, it is a biography and though I hate this kind of thing, this was very engaging! Loved every page of it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Kusama is a graphic biography of the contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama. We're invited into her life to learn the struggles she had to bear since she was born. Starting from growing up in an extremely conservative rural Japanese town, to earning her place in America, it is clear that nothing was easy for her.

Kusama fought against the prejudices that dominated her era and, through her art, manifested a message of gender equality and freedom of expression. we can see how ahead of time she was with her nude performances that encouraged the exploration of sexual orientation.

Besides all of that, the art from this graphic novel was excellent and did a great resemblance to Kusama's real art. I recommend this to anyone who is interested in reading about her life and the battles women had to fight in the art world where men took advantage of them in order to beneficiate financially (like stealing their ideas and taking credit for their work.)

A wonderful graphic novel biography of my favourite living Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama. As befitting her style, the images are packed with colours, but behind the bright facade there are darker overtones as her life story unfolds, detailing her struggles with mental health, the expectations of her role as a woman in Japanese culture, her time spent in the art scene of NYC, and ultimately her success as a global cultural icon.
This was a fascinating read, and I learnt a lot about Kusama's life - previously I only really knew of her art. The illustrations are really excellent and a fitting tribute to the lady herself. Highly recommended.

Feedback is based on the beginning pages I managed to read. Love the colours and art.
Sadly I was unable to finish this as when I tried to re-acces I could not get into the book.

Love the minimal palette used in this comic book. I'm a fan of Kusama's art but like most people I've only seen her more recent works, so it was very interesting to see her journey. The mental illness piece was also quite important, and I liked how this book shows it in an honest way.

This is a graphic novel interpretation of Kusama's life from childhood to older years. I am familiar with Kusama's work and I have also watched the documentary of her life which features a lot of what is shown in this book. Kusama is certainly an interesting artist and she really struggled in a male dominated artist scene for quite a while until she made a name for herself. Her art centres around obsessive dots and often includes hundreds of phallic objects which seem to have come about from issues in childhood that have contributed to her mental health issues her whole life. This book showcases many events in her life and even includes a bit of nudity from her pop up installations. The pictures draws perfectly on Kusama's style and is a great companion to the documentary which I would also recommend.

I'd never heard of Yayoi Kusama before reading this, so was interested to see what this book was about.

It's an comic style layout of the artists life which provides a good overview of her childhood, how she got started and some of her most famous art from the 60's and 70's in New York and Toyko.

The drawings are very intriguing and it feels like an usual way to portray a life, but I did enjoy reading it.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

I am lucky to live in a city that features a large scale installation by Ms Kusama! This graphic novel really brought the artists and her works to life. Would recommend for teen and up who are interested in art/art history, we have many where I work.

Maybe not quite as full a picture of Yayoi Kusama's life and art as I'd have liked, but Macellari's work takes a good look at her early years in Japan and New York (including brushes with Warhol and a Nyack-based artist named Joseph Cornell.

It’s no secret that the art and literature world are often dominated by male artists and writers. Everyone has heard of a Mark Twain or a Leo Tolstoy but few of Anna Akhmatova. Everyone must have heard of Picasso and Andy Warhol but few of Yayoi Kusama, who also created her art in the same decade as Warhol.

A striking graphic novel, Kusama, by Elisa Macellari and translated from Italian to English by Edward Fortes, pays a fitting tribute to this troubled and spectacular artist. Yayoi Kusama was born in Japan and took a momentous decision of moving to America to take her career as an artist forward. It was an unthinkable decision for her parents, a decision which led to a breakdown of her ties with them. For painting then, and even now, is considered nothing more than a hobby. The disapproval for a girl indulging in painting is even greater.

Check out the full review on my blog: https://bookreviewsgalore.wordpress.com/2020/10/24/graphic-novel-on-yayoi-kusama/

This beautiful graphic biography of Yayoi Kusama is a delight! It's clear the illustrator/author has a deep affection for Yaoyoi Kusama and her works.

Elisa Macellari's second graphic novel is a biography of kinds of the famed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Instead of trying to show the entirety of the artist's life, Macellari has chosen instead to focus only on a few of the most important snapshots of her life - from her early years as a kind of strange child who can hear flowers to her wild period in the New York's avant-garde to finally her retirement at a psychiatric institution.

The majority of the book deals with Kusama's inner world and as such, tries to portray the world as seen by the unique Japanese artists. We feel that we can see the world of dots as seen by Kusama, also the shapes that constitute her life, even maybe feel to a slight degree her sense of alienation and disassociation from the world. Even maybe her extreme dislike of sex and her artistic preoccupation with it. In this, and Macellari's brilliant drawing lies one of the few strengths of the book.

Yet, as a piece of writing Kusama has a few weaknesses, the biggest among which is the fact that it seems to be aimed at people who are familiar with Yayoi Kusama's life and work. Also, though the book seems to focus on her mental illness(es), it does not really delve very deep into them, neither it tries to see what the reasons behind them might be. This results in a beautiful, yet somewhat mediocre novel.