Japanese artist Kusama Yayoi’s official website announced that she had passed away on August 14. 

Kusama was known around the world for her distinctive works featuring polka dots and immersive installations. 

The website said that she died at a hospital in Tokyo at age 97. 

Kusama was born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture. 

She experienced visual and auditory hallucinations from a young age that later led to her signature  polka-dot and net motifs. 

She went on to build an international career as a pioneering avant-garde artist, working across painting, sculpture, installations, performance art, and other fields. 

Her Infinity Mirror Rooms and other immersive works attracted audiences around the world and helped make her one of Japan’s most internationally recognized contemporary artists. 

Kusama’s website wrote that the artist continued to explore eternal love and the soul, and never put down her paintbrush until just before her death.