Yayoi Kusama’s wide ranging practice reflects a lifelong preoccupation with the infinite and sublime, as well as the twin themes of cosmic infinity and personal obsession, as found in pattern and repetition. An enduring feature of Kusama’s unique art is the intricate lattice of paint that covers the surface of her Infinity Net canvases, the negative spaces between the individual loops of these all-over patterns emerging as delicate polka dots. These motifs have their roots in hallucinations from which she has suffered since childhood, in which the world appears to her to be covered with proliferating forms.
All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, 2016
Wood, mirror, plastic, acrylic, LED
292.4 x 415 x 415cm
The pumpkin occupies a special place in her iconography and is a motif she has returned to repeatedly throughout her career. Kusama has described her images of them as a form of self-portraiture.
Installation View, Yayoi Kusama
25 May – 30 July 2016. Gallery I, Victoria Miro, 16 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW
Forging a path between abstract expressionism and minimalism, Kusama first showed her white Infinity Nets in New York in the late 1950s to critical acclaim. She continues to develop their possibilities in monochromatic works which are covered with undulating meshes that seem to fluctuate and dissolve as the viewer moves around them.