D ancing with rhythmic motion, Infinity-Nets (QPOW), painted in 2006, is a testament to Yayoi Kusama’s captivating mastery of spatial abstraction from the artist’s most celebrated corpus of paintings. An archetypal example of Kusama’s iconic style of abstraction, which established her extraordinary position in art history, the present work consists of an endless maze of oscillating, kaleidoscopic patterns. The present work continues the legacy of Kusama’s iconic series of Infinity Nets that the artist began in 1958, employing the same repetitive and hypnotic mark-making that functions as the conceptual nexus of the artist’s obsession and unconscious, ultimately culminating in a canvas of heightened visual and psychological intensity. Although the artist was first affiliated with the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York, Kusama has defied categrorisation throughout her career. In Japan, her earliest work was considered Surrealist, while the 1960s brought group exhibitions alongside Pop artists and the European ZERO; indeed, the breadth of her practice has spanned performance, video, sculpture, installation, and even literature. Amongst this diverse body of work, however, it is the Infinity Nets that stand as the most iconic and enduring iteration of her ground-breaking practice. Created almost 50 years after she began this expansive series, Infinity Nets (QPOW) closely corresponds with the very first examples owing to its wonderful texture and exclusively white-monochromicity.

In Infinity Nets (QPOW), Kusama’s restricted palette imparts a sense of ethereality onto the canvas; the work is vaporous, texturally anomalous and full of reflected light. The artist’s labyrinthine web of mesmeric pigment loops display irrepressible force, drawing the viewer irresistibly towards the shimmering spaces contained within the tightly woven blanket of paint. The undulating, almost topographical surface of the work hypnotically meanders across the extent of the picture plane, mirroring the process in which it is created. Kusama’s innumerable brushstrokes pile onto one another, culminating in some parts of the canvas in mounds of expressive impasto, and congealing into radiating planes of pigment in others. Each dab of paint is laid with a punctilious devotion to the act of mark-making, consuming the canvas in a field of texture. For all the flurry of countless brushstrokes across this grand canvas, with its elegant palette and intricate construction, the work remains entirely serene and utterly spellbinding to the artist and viewer alike.

Before moving to New York in the late 1950s, Kusama sought the advice of American abstract artist Georgia O’Keeffe: she sent O’Keeffe examples of her early work – surreal yet anthropomorphic watercolour pieces – and the two artists began a correspondence that would last until the end of O’Keeffe’s life; indeed, for Kusama, their exchange was the deciding factor in her choice to emigrate in late 1957. With the elder artist, Kusama shared an obsession with organic plant-like forms that simultaneously evoke the somatic: her earliest watercolours imply a kind of florid abstract corporeality that can also be found in the cell-like repetition that constitutes the Infinity Nets. When they finally met in New York in 1961, O’Keeffe generously introduced the young Kusama to her dealer in New York, Edith Halpert, who, in support of the burgeoning Japanese artist, bought one of the early Infinity Nets.

A mesmeric corpus produced over the course of the artist’s prodigious career, the Infinity Nets serve as the cornerstone of Kusama’s artistic practice, and the foundation for the remainder of her painterly and sculptural output, inhabiting a psychological realm nestled between the premeditation of grand artistic concept and the automatism of surrealism. Kusama first started the Infinity Nets in June 1958, shortly after moving from Japan to New York City. Driven by a great ambition to become a successful artist and rival the dominant male voices of the time, she responded to the prevailing avant-garde language of Abstract Expressionism by turning personal psychological impulse into an ingenious formal concern. Indeed, the Infinity Nets mark a manifestation of and coping mechanism for Kusama’s obsessive-compulsive disorder and hallucinations brought on by a diagnosed psychological condition. Kusama struggled with visions of infinitely oscillating, kaleidoscopic patterns throughout her childhood in Japan, the memories of which she has described in her own words: “I was always standing at the centre of the obsession, over the passionate accretion and repetition inside of me" (Yayoi Kusama quoted in: Laura Hoptman, Yayoi Kusama, London 2000, p. 103).

誕 生於2006年的《無限網（QPOW）》充滿舞蹈的躍動感，足證草間彌生在最受青睞的繪畫系列中，處理抽象空間時展現出的迷人魔力。草間以標誌性的抽象風格確立在藝術界的超凡地位，本作正是其抽象創作的優秀典例，千變萬化的圖案不停搖動，組成漫無止境的迷宮。藝術家自1958年開始創作標誌性的《無限網》系列，本作繼承系列中的各種元素，同樣不斷重複描畫令人迷醉的筆觸，表現迷戀和無意識行為之間的關係，最終積累成衝擊視覺和心理的畫面。雖然草間最初被認為是紐約抽象表現主義運動的一脈，但她由始至終抗拒被標籤歸類。她早年的創作在日本通常被視為超現實主義，於六十年代經常與波普藝術家和歐洲「零派」藝術家同場展出。她的創作類型非常廣泛，涵蓋行為藝術、錄像、雕塑、裝置、文學等多個藝術領域。然而《無限網》一直是她的代表作，也是其特立獨行的藝術生涯中跨越最長時間的作品系列。《無限網（QPOW）》距離此作品系列開展的時間將近五十年，卻憑著所展現的豐富紋理和獨有的單色表現，緊扣著最初在系列出現的早期作品。

這幅《無限網（QPOW）》用色克制，為畫面平添空靈飄渺之感；畫中彷彿霧氣瀰漫，紋理不甚規整，反射耀眼的光芒。連綿不絕的圓圈組成迷宮般的網狀脈絡，迸發無從抑制的力量，將觀眾的目光鎖定在這片以顏料交織而成的閃亮空間。畫作表面起伏跌宕，密佈的圖案蜿蜒伸展，猶如錄下畫面形成的過程。草間將無數筆觸層層覆疊，在畫面一隅形成甚具表現力的厚塗肌理，在另一隅則結聚成向外擴散的顏料層。一筆一劃流露出藝術家一絲不苟的繪畫功夫，令整個畫面充滿豐富質感。倘大的畫布上無數筆觸看似紛繁亂舞，但畫面用色典雅沉實，結構細密複雜，在藝術家和觀眾看來，都顯得安靜祥和，引人入勝。

草間在五十年代末移居紐約前，曾向美國抽象藝術家喬治亞・歐姬芙請教︰她曾將自己早年創作、充滿擬人化物像的超現實水彩畫寄給歐姬芙，自此二人便一直通信聯繫，直至歐姬芙離世。事實上，她們的交往是草間決定在1957年底搬到美國的主因。草間也像她仰慕的前輩一樣，迷戀讓人聯想到身體的有機植物形態︰她在最早期的水彩畫借用抽象的花卉形象暗喻肉體，而「無限網」系列中恍如細胞的重複結構也具有這種意味。1961年兩位藝術家終於在紐約相見，歐姬芙大方地向在紐約代理自己的伊迪絲・哈爾珀特引薦年輕的草間，哈爾珀特也購藏了草間一幅早期的《無限網》畫作，支持這位新晉日本藝術家。

在漫長的創作人生路上，草間不間斷地建構著這個龐大的《無限網》系列，它可以說是她整個藝術生涯的重心，亦是她的繪畫和雕塑的基礎。無論是構思宏大的藝術理念，還是跟隨超現實主義所延伸出來的自動主義無意識地舞動彩筆，這片無限網一直牢掛在草間的心中。她從日本移居紐約後沒多久，就在1958年6月開始創作《無限網》。當年她決意在美國闖出一片天、並抗衡以男性為主導聲音的雄心壯志，驅使她將個人內心的衝動轉化成獨一無二的形態，同時亦機靈地回應抽象表現主義的前衛視覺語言。她被診斷患為強迫症患者後，《無限網》確實能夠反映她的心理狀況和所見幻象，也同時是她應付精神症狀的機制。草間在日本的童年生活飽受折磨，被不斷移動、千變萬化的幻象圖案困擾，正如藝術家憶述：「我一直都對不斷增生和重複有著強迫性的迷戀，而我正身處這種迷戀的中心」（引述藝術家，載於蘿拉・霍普特曼著，《草間彌生》，倫敦，2000年，頁103）。