Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929)

‘My nets grew beyond myself and beyond the canvases I was covering with them. They began to cover the walls, the ceiling, and finally the whole universe. I was always standing at the center of the obsession, over the passionate accretion and repetition inside of me’ (Y. Kusama, quoted in L. Hoptman and U. Kultermann, Yayoi Kusama, New York 2000, p. 103).

Yayoi Kusama has found international reputation for this ongoing series of painted Infinity Nets that share links with Minimalism, Op Art and the Zero movement. The first white nets appeared in the 1950s and 60s, with Donald Judd among their first collectors. During this period Kusama compulsively painted for hours on end without eating or sleeping. The artist has described her Infinity Net paintings as visualizations of hallucinations resulting from the psychological condition of “obsessive neurosis”. The present work is a characteristic example of her attempts to represent this mental state, during which her visual field is distorted by a mesh of dots. This painting’s use of unvaried tonal range is typical of Kusama’s oeuvre. The bichromatic colour palette gives emphasis to the crystalline blue net that multiplies across a black ground. Rhizomatic in structure, the slight inconsistencies in shape hint at organic form. The seemingly endless pattern of connected diamonds reach beyond the canvas; creating the dreamlike optical illusion for which the artist is celebrated.