Top 20 Most Famous Female Painters Today

A Reasoned Selection

Throughout art history, there have been numerous tremendous female painters from the Early Modern era up to this very day—think of Artemisia Gentileschi, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, and Angelica Kauffman, to more recently Hilma af Klint, Frida Kahlo, and Helen Frankenthaler. True icons that have defined and influenced art history. However, who are the most famous living female painters, shaping contemporary painting as we know it today?

As a result, we have conducted a complete survey to identify the top twenty most influential—or rather, most pertinent—female painters of the 21st century. And—as always, when assembling these top lists for our articles, we have created a reasoned anthology using objective art scientific data instead of presenting a subjective and personal list. In doing so, the analytical research tool of Artfacts is our starting point, ranking artists by measuring their pertinence in the art world in terms of exhibitions at significant institutions or featuring in renowned art collections.

Please note that the selected artists are also eligible for this list when working in different media. However, we have ensured that with every selected artist, painting plays an essential part in their oeuvre. Therefore, we are pleased to present the top twenty most famous female painters today, from Amy Sherald to Yayoi Kusama.

20. Amy Sherald

Born in 1973 in Colombus, Georgia, the United States of America, and working and residing in New York City, Amy Sherald is a contemporary painter best known for her intimate portraits of African-Americans today. By engaging with the history of both fine art photography and portraiture in painting and beyond, Sherald’s arresting portraits tackle issues of race, discrimination, and representation of Black life in America and American art history. As a result, a complex and subtle debate emerges between the artist and the sitter, the painting and the viewer, and the subject and American society.

First Lady Michelle Obama appointed Amy Sherald to paint her portrait—an official commission for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. She was also the first female African-American to win the grand prize at the Outwit Boochever Portrait Competition from the same National Portrait Gallery. As a result, she has participated in numerous institutional exhibitions. She is featured in renowned collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and many more.[1]

Amy Sherald, Amy Sherald, The Make Believer (Monet’s Garden), 2016 Oil on canvas — 54 × 43 in | 137.2 × 109.2 cm. Collection the Studio Museum in Harlem.

19. Jenny Saville

Born in 1970 in Cambridge, England, residing and working in Oxford, Jenny Saville‘s painterly practice is marked by the body and the perception or experience of the body. Influenced by both classical figuration and modern abstraction, Saville depicts the body in all its beauty and sorrow, shifting its shape to grotesque proportions and sensually painted flesh—reminiscent of Rubens’ voluptuous Baroque nudes. Her distinctive visual language and painterly virtuosity, predominantly working in oil, emphasize her fascination for the imperfections of flesh and its societal connotations and implications, resulting in captivating portraits, most often large in scale.

Jenny Saville is a member of the Young British Artists (YBA). However, instead of a multidisciplinary practice such as Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst, Saville’s artistic practice is characterized by figurative painting in all its purity and glory. She has had institutional solo exhibitions at the Museo di Palazzo Vecchio in Venice, Italy; the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland; the Norton Museum of Art in Florida, the United States of America; and the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Rome, to name just a few. For further reading, please read our artist spotlight on Jenny Saville here.[2]

Jenny Saville, Fulcrum, 1998-1999. Oil on canvas – 261.6 x 487.7 cm. Courtesy Gagosian and the artist.

18. Tala Madani

Born in 1981 in Tehran, Iran, residing and working in Los Angeles, the United States of America, Tala Madani is a contemporary artist occupied with painting, but also animation, or video. One encounters a critical combination of both slapstick humor and a wide range of contemporary critique—reflecting on issues such as political authority, power imbalances, gender and identity, the representation of people in art and life, or everyday topics such as motherhood. Her distinctive figurative language is marked by a radical morphology, depicting people as chubby, bald, naked, or deformed, and an omnipresent affinity for movement, speed, and sequence—hence her use of animation and video in her artistic practice.

The beams of light resonating in her painterly practice and the fluidity of the body have proven to be tremendously successful, resulting in an utterly impressive exhibition history in her early forties. Think of the institutional solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the United States of America; the Start Museum in Shanghai, China; the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan; the Moderna Museet in Malmö and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. Madani also participated in the 16th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey, and the Whitney Biennial 2017 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the United States of America—to name just a few highlights of her illustrious career so far.[3]

Tala Madani, Shit Mom (Visitors), 2020. Oil on linen — 77 x 80 x 1 1/4 inches. Courtesy David Kordansky Gallery.

17. Dóra Maurer

Born in 1937 in Budapest, Hungary, where the artist continues to work and reside, Dóra Maurer examines notions of change and displacement in her multi-disciplinary conceptual practice—encompassing drawing, printmaking, photography, video, and, of course, painting. Trained as a graphic artist, Maurer’s geometric abstraction of shaped, colorful, abstract pictures examines the interplay between internal and external spatial factors—actively contributing the similar trends in painting at the time, think of the irregularly shaped canvases in post-painterly abstraction with Kenneth Noland or Ellsworth Kelly, or even Lucio Fontana’s Spatialism.

Emphasized by the effects of color to transform the superimposition of the space of her paintings, Maurer’s tableaus have sculptural plasticity to them, in which various forms seem to hover in space, even though they are painted on a single plane. As a result, Dóra Maurer was one of the most influential figures in the Hungarian avant-garde—but was often overlooked in art historiography due to the dominance of American abstraction. However, her illustrious career proves she has earned her place to be among these iconic artists, having exhibited at the most significant institutions across the globe; think of the Tate Modern in London, the United Kingdom; the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the United States of America; or Whitechapel Gallery in London, the United Kingdom, among many others.[4]

Dóra Maurer, Quod Libet 39, 1999. Acrylic on canvas and wood — 94 1/2 × 181 7/8 in / 240 × 462 cm. © Dóra Maurer. Courtesy White Cube.

16. Latifa Echakhch

Born in 1974 in El Khnansa, Morocco, residing and working in Martigny and Vevey, Switzerland, Latifa Echakhch is a multidisciplinary artist working between the surreal and the conceptual in painting, sculpture, installation, and drawing. By mining cultural stereotypes, Latifa Echakhch questions the importance of symbols reflecting on the fragile nature of modernism and contemporary society. Deconstructing and reconstructing materials linked with her personal walk of life—having migrated from Morocco to France at the age of three—she creates new objects to challenge cultural assumptions across various artistic disciplines.

In France, Echakhch studied at the École Supérieure d’Art de Grenoble and won the renowned Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2013. Ever since, she has participated in renowned institutional exhibitions and art events at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the United States of America; the Pinault Collection in Venice, Italy; the Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, Switzerland; and Tate Modern in London, the United Kingdom.[5]

Latifa Echakhch, Wind Wall Icon, 2020. Triptych; metallic pigment, red, black paint, concrete, fiber, and vinyl on canvas — 78-3/4″ x 59-1/16″ (each panel), 200 cm x 150 cm, 78-3/4″ x 177-3/16″ (overall), 200 cm x 450 cm. © Latifa Echakhch. Courtesy Pace Gallery.

15. Vija Celmins

Born in 1938 in Riga, Latvia, residing and working in New York, the United States of America, Visa Celmins is one of the most important figures of the 20th century, connecting minimalism with painting and drawing. Lauded for meticulously painted contemplative works depicting ocean waves, deserts, and night skies, Celmins is interested in how the invisible or the contemplative resides in the visible world. Initially, the Latvian painter depicted everyday objects, such as the heater in her studio, a hot plate, and more, before focusing on more abstract elements, such as rocks, stars, and waves.

She focused on graphite drawing by the end of the 1960s before returning to painting in the 1980s, resulting in an iconic painterly oeuvre that traveled the world. As a result, Celmins has had retrospective and one-person shows in the States at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, but also abroad, at the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France; and more.[6]

Vija Celmins, A Painting in Six Parts, 1986–87/2012–16. Oil on canvas, six parts 15⅛ × 251 inches; 38 × 638 cm. Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery.

14. Judy Chicago

Born in 1939 in Chicago, Illinois, the United States of America, where the artist works and resides, Judy Chicago is a renowned artist but also an author, educator, intellectual, and feminist. As a result, Chicago pioneered Feminist Art throughout the 1960s and 1970s, working in various media such as textile, sculpture, installation, and painting. Interested in the relationship between landscape and the female body, her painterly practice is characterized by a distinctive visual language. One encounters vivid colors and a fluidity in line—a crucial aspect in her renowned Birth Project in the 1980s exploring the intricacies of childbirth.

It is safe to say Judy Chicago influenced the art world and beyond. As a result, she was featured in Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and received the Visionary Woman Award from the Museum of Contemporary Art in her hometown Chicago. Her work is collected by renowned institutions such as the British Museum in London, the United Kingdom; the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the United States of America; and Tate Modern in London, the United Kingdom; to name just a few.[7]

Judy Chicago, Driving the World to Destruction, 1985. Sprayed acrylic and oil on Belgian Linen — 109 1/2 x 169 3/4 x 2 inches (Framed). Courtesy Salon 94.

13. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Born in 1977 in London, the United Kingdom, where the artist continues to work and reside, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a contemporary painter who—in the words of the artist herself—suggests people without specifying the place, identity, narrative, or concerns. An open approach in which she invites the viewer’s imagination and background to enter the interpretation of the picture. Yiadom-Boakye’s characteristic black subjects evoke a reaction of politicizing her paintings. However, the starting point is the language of painting—line, color, scale, and the contemporary subject. Yet, this complex tendency to politicize these subjects is essential for her work, considering her narratives’ openness and the depicted figures’ state of mind.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and received the Carnegie Prize. She has had important solo exhibitions at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden; K20 in Dusseldorf, Germany; and MUDAM in Luxembourg; the New Museum and Studio Museum in New York, the United States of America; the Haus Der Kunst in Munich, Germany; and the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland. Further, due to her Ghanaian roots, Yiadom-Boakye participated in the inaugural exhibition of the Ghanaian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019.[8]

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Any Number of Preoccupations, 2010. Oil on canvas – 164 × 204 cm. Courtesy Serpentine Galleries.

12. Vera Molnár

Born in 1924 in Budapest, Hungary, working and residing in Paris, France, Vera Molnár is one of the early pioneers of computer art—and has implemented her radical systematic computer-based approach to find intriguing intersections between art and technology. An essential facet of her oeuvre is her geometric abstractions. Molnár focuses on elementary forms influenced by algorithmic programs using compositional methods of predetermined mathematical rules. She is fascinated by the exact moment an arrangement of simple shapes becomes art, exploring various permutations resulting in creating a series of paintings.

In 1968, Vera Molnár gained access to a computer for the first time. She programmed a language using zeros and ones, which fed the computer instructions, before producing line drawings with a moving pen—the origins of an illustrious practice. Ever since, Molnár would participate in the Venice Biennale and institutional exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the United States of America, or being collected by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, or Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen, Germany.[9]

Vera Molnar, 2 demi-lunes, 2007. Acrylic on canvas — 39 19/50 × 78 3/4 × 1 in | 100 × 200 × 2.5 cm. Courtesy Oniris Art.

11. Nicole Eisenman

Born in 1965 in Verdun, France, residing and working in New York, the United States of America, Nicole Eisenman’s painterly practice examines often contradictory realities of the human condition. Eisenman also works in drawing, illustration, printmaking, and sculpture; however, she’s predominantly known for intimate figurative oil paintings with an introspective character. With a focus on the individual, Eisenman takes on humanities recurring opposites of good versus evil, despair versus humor, and shame versus pleasure, but also tackles contemporary societal issues such as sexism, feminist separatism, and mainstream culture. Her visual language revisits traditional painting methods while maintaining an ultra-contemporary aesthetic.

A breakthrough moment for the French-American artist was her participation in the Whitney Biennial, followed by a Guggenheim Fellowship just before the turn of the new millennium. With her oeuvre currently spanning four decades, Eisenman has had recent institutional solo presentations at the Museum Brandhorst in Munich, Germany; the Kunstmuseum in Den Haag, the Netherlands; the Museet for Moderne Kunst in Oslo, Norway; and the Baden Staatliche Kunsthalle in Baden-Baden, Germany.[10]

Nicole Eisenman, Morning Studio, 2016. Oil on canvas — 66 x 83 in. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

10. Mickalene Thomas

Born in 1971 in Camden, New Jersey, and currently working and residing in Brooklyn, New York, the United States of America, Mickalene Thomas is a contemporary artist working in painting, collage, video, photography, and installation—drawing inspiration from art history and popular culture. She depicts a contemporary vision of female sexuality, marked by beauty and power. The American artist creates complex portraits and landscapes examining identity and gender, in which the distinctions between object and subject, reality and fiction, representational and abstract, fade slowly but surely. By doing so, Mickalene Thomas revisits the representation of women in art and popular culture.

Thomas’ engagement and social activism via art were rewarded with several prizes and grants, including the Anonymous Was A Woman Award, the Brooklyn Museum Asher B. Durand Award, and the Timer Award for Leadership in the Arts. Recent notable solo exhibitions in the United States include the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio, the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Georgia, the College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.[11]

Mickalene Thomas, Interior: Yellow, Green and Blue Couch, 2018. Rhinestone, glitter acrylic, and oil paint on canvas mounted on wood panel 84 × 96 × 2 1/5 in | 213.4 × 243.8 × 5.7 cm. Courtesy Nathalie Obadia.

9. Bridget Riley

Born in 1931 in London, the United Kingdom, where the artist continues to work and reside, Bridget Riley is one of the leading figures for the Op Art movement, combining hard-edge abstraction with optical illusion and the suggestion of movement—influenced by Fluxus and Kinetic Art. Riley created geometric patterns—exclusively in black and white before introducing color into her painterly practice in the late 1960s. She composes (colorful) shapes across her canvas, resulting in vibrant tableaus, internationally lauded for their ingenuity, beauty, and suggestion of subtle movements.

As a result, Bridget Riley is one of her generation’s most important abstract painters. She represented Great Britain during the Venice Biennale and was the first woman to be awarded the International Prize for Painting in the 1960s and 1970s. More recently, Riley remains trending in today’s art world, with solo exhibitions at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland; the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, Japan; the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, the Netherlands; and the National Gallery in London, the United Kingdom.[12]

Bridget Riley, Lagoon 1. Oil on canvas — 147 x 193 cm.; 58 x 76 in. Collection: The Lambrecht-Schadeberg Collection, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates, London.

8. Julie Mehretu

Born in 1970 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, residing and working in New York, the United States of America, Julie Mehretu is a contemporary painter who is best known for her abstract pictures influenced by urban landscapes, social behavior, the psychogeography of space, and the contemporary experience. Lauded for her complex compositions and exhilarating mark-making, Mehretu often includes photographic images from broadcasted media depicting conflict or social injustice. Inspired by these socio-political events, but also by literature and music, the Ethiopian-American artist transforms these visual narratives into gestural abstraction, provoking thought and reflection.

With a recent major career survey at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art—which traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the High Museum in Atlanta, and the Walker Museum of Art in Minneapolis—Julie Mehretu is one of the leading American painters of the 21st century. She participated in Carnegie International, the Sydney Biennial, dOCUMENTA in Kassel, and the Venice Biennale, asserting her presence in the art world consistently and convincingly.[13]

Julie Mehretu, Stadia I, 2004. Ink and acrylic on canvas – 271.8 × 355.6 cm. Collection San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) San Francisco.

7. Camille Henrot

Born in 1978 in Paris, France, residing and working between Berlin, Germany, and New York, the United States of America, Camille Henrot is a multidisciplinary artist working in film, painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation. At the core of her practice, one encounters references from literature, psychoanalysis, and cultural anthropology, but also self-help, social media, and the banality of everyday life. Henrot questions the meaning of being a private individual and simultaneously a global subject, contemplating our globalized connection, receiving information and incentives from everywhere at any time, resulting in an overstimulated world and persona.

The calculated nature of her neo-conceptual sculptures and installations is juxtaposed with her sensually painted and expressive abstract works on canvas. She has exhibited across the globe at renowned institutions such as the New Museum in New York, the United States of America; the Schinkel Pavilion in Berlin, Germany; the New Orleans Museum of Art, the United States of America; Fondazione Memmo in Rome, Italy; the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Japan; the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp, Belgium; Kunstverein Salzburg in Salzburg, Austria; and Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, among other prestigious venues.[14]

Camille Henrot, Tomorrow or the next day (“Is Today Tomorrow” series), 2020. Watercolor, acrylic, and oil on canvas — 7 9/10 × 7 9/10 in | 20 × 20 cm. Courtesy Mennour.

6. Katharina Grosse

Born in 1961 in Freiburg, Germany, and currently residing and working in Berlin, Katharina Grosse is one of the most influential artists of her generation, marked by abstraction and an expansive painterly practice. For Grosse, painting is a screen between the viewer and the artist—a screen one can analyze from different angles to revisit the artist’s thought processes. She is best known for her (in situ) spray paintings in which color is set free, explosively, albeit onto a canvas, an interior, a landscape, or exterior architecture.

The site-responsiveness of her work has increased over the past few years—approaching almost all matter as a painterly surface. By doing so, this natural relationship between the paint, the surface, and the context of the surface, has resulted in ingenious—often monumental—site-specific works. Katharina Grosse has exhibited at the Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, the United States of America; the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France; the Venice Biennale, Italy; the Museum Wiesbaden, Germany; and the MoMA PS1 in New York, the United States of America.[15]

Katharina Grosse, O.T., 1997. Acrylic on canvas — 65 × 122 in | 165 × 310 cm. Courtesy KÖNIG Galerie.

5. Miriam Cahn

Born in 1949 in Basel, residing and working in Stampa, Switzerland, Miriam Cahn is a contemporary figurative painter who repositions—and reassociates—the traditional practice with new artistic disciplines such as performance and installation. By doing so, she developed her own painterly practice in which she aims to reduce the influence of the mind in the creative process, painting blindfolded or naked on her studio floor—allowing performance to enter the painterly process. She also revisited the traditional studio practice of a painter, bringing painting into the public space with artistic actions and murals.

Miriam Cahn is fascinated by how the depicted body—any body, from genitalia to the body of a house—can inhabit and radiate a physical condition through her brushwork. A natural result is her sensual visual language, the subjective use of colors, and the profound emotive character of painting. In the 1980s, Cahn rose to fame with a solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Basel, Switzerland, and representing her country at the 1984 Venice Biennale. More recent institutional solo shows include the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France; the Fondazione ICA in Milan, Italy; the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland.[16]

Miriam Cahn, im bunker, 12.1.19. Oil on wood — 21 7/10 × 33 9/10 in | 55 × 86 cm. Courtesy Jocelyn Wolff.

4. Tracey Emin

Born in 1963 in London, the United Kingdom, and residing and working between London, Margate, and the South of France, Tracey Emin is arguably one of the best-known artists from her generation, internationally lauded for her tremendously versatile oeuvre, ranging from notorious ready-made installations to neon sculptures, and textile embroidery to expressive figurative paintings. Emin deals with her personal experiences and trauma in the utmost frank, intimate, raw, and genuine manner. From sexual partners to dealing with loss and grief, from her chaotic teenage years to her pregnancies and abortions. Or, in the words of the artist, how honesty can be the most beautiful thing, no matter how painful it is to look at.

Tracey Emin—who was also a member of the Young British Artists (YBA) alongside the aforementioned Jenny Saville—represented Great Britain at the 52nd Venice Biennale and has exhibited at major museums, including the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the United Kingdom; the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France; Turner Contemporary in Margate, the United Kingdom; and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; among many others. Emin recently founded her revolutionary art school in Margate, offering studios, residencies, and first-hand lessons from the industry-leading artist, passing on her experience and supporting a new generation of artists.[17]

Tracey Emin, I’m not a Fucking Animal, 2023. Acrylic on canvas — 48 1/5 × 48 1/10 × 1 1/2 in / 122.4 × 122.3 × 3.8 cm. Courtesy Xavier Hufkens.

3. Leiko Ikemura

Born in 1951 in Tsu, Mie, Japan, residing and working between Berlin and Cologne, Germany, Leiko Ikemura is a Japanese-Swiss artist working in painting and sculpture. Personal experiences and intimate stories have defined her artistic practice. From her years in Japan to passages in Spain and Switzerland, this lifelong journey is transformed into an intimate body of works depicting landscapes, human figures, and amorphous forms in her paintings. Ikemura creates an enigmatic world populated by hybrid—almost mythological—entities, balancing between the human and the natural.

Leiko Ikemura is arguably one of the most important painters today. Her works have been showcased globally at some of the most important institutions, including the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Japan; and the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, the United States of America. As a result, Ikemura is collected by major museums such as the Albertina in Vienna, Austria; the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Japan; and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France.[18]

Leiko Ikemura, Colonia, 2014. Tempera and oil on jute – 190 x 290 cm. Courtesy Tim Van Laere Gallery.

2. Marlene Dumas

Born in 1953 in Cape Town, South Africa, residing and working in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Marlene Dumas is regarded as one of the most influential painters of her time, internationally lauded for her stylized figures and intimate portraits. Dumas draws inspiration from her postmodern archival fever revisiting second-hand images to evoke first-hand emotions. She has a vast archive of images encompassing various sources such as mass media, historical materials, and even personal snapshots of her friends and family. With her characteristic fluid use of line and delicate transparency in color, Marlene Dumas re-contextualizes her archival subjects, resulting in ambiguous images in which the distinction between the public and the private dissolves.

Recently, Marlene Dumas had a major solo presentation at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy, shortly after her retrospective exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which traveled to the Tate Modern in London, the United Kingdom, and Fondation Beyeler in Basel. Prior to these retrospectives, Dumas’ career and work were celebrated with overview exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the United States of America. However, these are just a few highlights from an utterly impressive career encompassing almost all the most important institutions for contemporary art.[19]

Marlene Dumas, The Image as Burden, 1993. Oil on canvas – 40 × 50 cm. Collection Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

1. Yayoi Kusama

Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, and currently residing and working in Tokyo, Japan, Yayoi Kusama sits at the very top of our listicle and is arguably one of the most influential artists of the contemporary era. Kusama’s multidisciplinary practice is marked by her iconic motifs, such as the pumpkin and, above all, the polka dots. Kusama suffers from hallucinations, experiencing dazzling sensations of infinity, which is directly reflected in her oeuvre—think of her mirrored infinity rooms and, especially in painting, her infinity nets; fusing Abstract Expressionism with Minimalism in the 1960s in New York and remaining relevant and trending up to this very day.

Kusama’s rise to fame predominantly occurred in New York City before checking herself in at a psychiatric facility in Japan, where she obsessively continues to create her art. Art becomes a natural form of therapy, and the necessity for treatment is the direct incentive for art. Kusama represented Japan at the 45th Venice Biennale, Italy, and has had institutional solo shows at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the United States of America, followed by major retrospectives at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, France; Tate Modern in London, the United Kingdom; and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the United States of America.[20]

By doing so, Yayoi Kusama continues to inspire thousands—as does painting, represented by these twenty top-notch contemporary artists, pushing the medium to new perspectives, heights, and experiences.

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity-Nets [XSHTQ], 2017. Acrylic on canvas – 130.5 x 194.0 cm. Courtesy David Zwirner.

Notes:

[1] Hauser & Wirth, Amy Sherald at https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/11577-amy-sherald/ consulted May 18, 2023.
[2] Gagosian, Jenny Saville at https://gagosian.com/artists/jenny-saville/ consulted May 18, 2023.
[3] David Kordansky Gallery, Tala Madani at https://www.davidkordanskygallery.com/artist/tala-madani consulted May 18, 2023.
[4] White Cube, Dóra Maurer at https://whitecube.com/artists/artist/dora_maurer consulted May 18, 2023.
[5] Pace Gallery, Latifa Echakhch at https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/latifa-echakhch/ consulted May 18, 2023.
[6] Matthew Marks Galler, Vija Celmins at https://matthewmarks.com/artists/vija-celmins/ consulted May 18, 2023.
[7] Salon 94, Judy Chicago at https://salon94.com/artists/judy-chicago/ consulted May 18, 2023.
[8] Jack Shaman Gallery, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at https://jackshainman.com/artists/lynette_yiadom_boakye consulted May 18, 2023.
[9] Thaddaeus Ropac, Vera Molnár at https://ropac.net/artists/231-vera-molnar/ consulted May 18, 2023.
[10] Acquavella Galleries, Nicole Eisenman at https://www.acquavellagalleries.com/artists/nicole-eisenman consulted May 18, 2023.
[11] Lehmann Maupin, Mickalene Thomas at https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/mickalene-thomas consulted May 18, 2023.
[12] Cristea Roberts Gallery, Bridget Riley at https://cristearoberts.com/artists/37-bridget-riley/ consulted May 18, 2023.
[13] Marian Goodman, Julie Mehretu at https://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/51-julie-mehretu/ consulted May 18, 2023.
[14] Mennour, Camille Henrot at https://mennour.com/artists/camille-henrot consulted May 18, 2023.
[15] Gagosian, Katharina Grosse at https://gagosian.com/artists/katharina-grosse/ consulted May 18, 2023.
[16] Galerie Wolff, Mirian Cahn at https://www.galeriewolff.com/artists/Miriam-Cahn consulted May 18, 2023.
[17] White Cube, Tracey Emin at https://whitecube.com/artists/artist/tracey_emin consulted May 18, 2023.
[18] Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Leiko Ikemura at https://www.peterkilchmann.com/artists/leiko-ikemura/biography consulted May 18, 2023.
[19] David Zwirner, Marlene Dumas at https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/marlene-dumas consulted May 18, 2023.
[20] David Zwirner, Yayoi Kusama at https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/yayoi-kusama consulted May 18, 2023.

Last Updated on August 25, 2023

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