Q&A with Simon Elliott, Author and Illustrator of Kusama: Polka Dot Queen

Today marks the UK release of Kusama: Polka Dot Queen, the brand-new graphic biography of the visionary modern artist Yayoi Kusama!

To mark the occasion, we decided to ask author-artist Simon Elliott some questions about how this book came to be, and why he chose Yayoi Kusama as the subject of his third graphic novel.

Simon Elliott is criminal barrister, artist, and lover of all things colourful. As a self-taught graphic novelist, his two previous works are Hockney: A Graphic Life (Frances Lincoln, 2023) and Vincent: A Graphic Biography (Frances Lincoln, 2024).

SelfMadeHero: You’ve spoken before about how you rediscovered a lifelong love of art and painting during lockdown. Since then, your work as a graphic novelist (separate from your work as a barrister) has focused on the lives of other artists. Did learning more about artists’ stories play a part in reviving your own passion for art?

Simon Elliott: Absolutely! I am such a fan of art and I am always curious about the person ‘behind the canvas’. I read a lot of artist biographies, and I am particularly drawn to stories of people who have managed to produce art often in the most difficult of situations – either because they grew up in modest circumstances and access to art/art education was limited (as with Hockney), or because mental health challenges were or are a part of their lives (as with van Gogh and Kusama) or because they faced religious and racial discrimination (as with Marc Chagall, my next project).

I suspect that lots of people took to art in lockdown as I did – I am always looking to art for inspiration and Hockney’s message at that time – ‘spring cannot be cancelled’ really resonated with me. I have been drawing every day since because it has become an essential part of my life. I don’t subscribe to the idea of the ‘tortured artist’ in that I don’t think that difficulty is a prerequisite for making (great) art, but I am a huge believer that we can all overcome certain difficulties through art.  The fact that Hockney personally approved my first book is a source of constant inspiration.

SMH: David Hockney, then Vincent van Gogh, and now Yayoi Kusama. Why did you decide to return to a living, modern artist after dipping into the 19th century?

Simon: I am an art lover, not an art expert – so I am working my way through the artists whose work speaks to me the most.  I like a fluid approach to art, so I am more interested in themes than artistic periods, dates , schools and so on.  I think that great art speaks to us with an immediacy and a sense of connection – but for me that can be as true of a painting from thousands of years ago as it is of a work that someone has just made, with the paint still wet.

SMH: Did telling the life story of Vincent van Gogh, who famously suffered from mental ill health, also inspire you to tell Kusama’s story as well? Did you bring any lessons learned from van Gogh with you to Kusama?

Simon: I started drawing graphic novels because I connect to stories through pictures and so it just seemed a very natural fit. I try to make work in a way that conveys the style and the vibe of the artist whose story I am telling. If I do a good job, then the book should be an artistic conversation between my style and the subject’s style. I have grown in confidence since my van Gogh book, so hopefully this work will feel like a progression.  I am always building on the styles, techniques and the technical iPad stuff, which I am learning as I go along.

SMH: As a self-taught graphic novelist, did you encounter any unique challenges when it came to capturing and adapting Kusama’s artistic style into this book?

Simon: I wanted two distinct styles in the Kusama book – one that gives a grounding in reality, and one designed to convey what I think of as ‘Kusama vision.’ I understand that Kusama doesn’t do any drafting, she just makes her beautiful work based on her incredible artistic skills, abilities and instincts. In order to reflect that, I set myself the challenge of only drawing the ‘Kusama vision’ pages once. There was no drafting, no redrawing and no editing as I went along. Nobody would ever know that, but I hope that something of the energy and rawness of Kusama’s process is conveyed.

SMH: What was your relationship with Kusama’s works and story before tackling this project? During the different stages of production, did you discover or rediscover anything about her life or her art that surprised you?

Simon: I am a huge Kusama fan. I have travelled all over the world to see her exhibitions, and I think one of the greatest pleasures of life is a few minutes spent in one of her Infinity Mirror Rooms. For me, the best bit about making books about artists is discovering work by them that I haven’t yet seen. In Kusama’s case, that was a lot of the work from her childhood and early years in Japan. She has always been hugely prolific (50 – 100 new works a day, at certain times) and seeing those works and understanding the roots of a lot of her key themes and motifs was seriously fascinating and fun.

I knew lots about her later life, but not so much about her childhood and so I decided to make a large portion of the book the origin story that people may not know so well, or at all. I think what surprised me the most was how talented she was even at a very young age. Her ability, scale and ambitions may have grown – but the spark of genius was always very clearly there.

SMH: Kusama is a world-famous, legendary artist. But, is there anything that you want people to learn about her from this book that they might not know or fully understand?

Simon: I like the line about Ginger Rogers being more impressive because she did everything that Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels. I think Kusama is rather like that. She was a woman determined to set her own path within a very traditional, patriarchal Japanese society, she dealt with serious abuse, she fought against a lack of representation and recognition for female artists, she faced prejudice in a post-WWII America which was still hostile to Japan, and overcame so many other challenges. For those familiar with her story, I hope that this book represents a unique way of telling it – and for those who don’t know about her life, I hope that it gives a flavour of just how pioneering, visionary and brave the woman behind the polka dots has been throughout her long life.

SMH: And finally, as for yourself, what part of Yayoi Kusama’s story has stayed with you the most since finishing Polka Dot Queen? What will you be taking with you into future projects, or even just into your artistic life?

Simon: In Kusama’s words, she followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow her to live. I think that art can transcend politics and some of the problems of the world and be an inspiration – and that we can all overcome certain things through making art (or through some other kind of personal expression). I find her story incredibly inspirational. For me, it’s all about picking up the pencil and making something. She did it because she felt an irresistible urge to create – and I bet that anyone who follows her example will feel the incredible benefits of just making something.

Thank you for reading! Kusama: Polka Dot Queen is out today in the UK, and will launch in North America on May 20th!

- The SelfMadeHero Team