Infinity Nets (T.W.A)

With its billowing clouds of ethereal loops and swirls, Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets (T.W.A) is the physical manifestation of the artist’s overarching imagination. Working continuously for hours at a time, Kusama’s expansive canvases become an exploration of both infinite space and immeasurable time. These reflections create boundless and highly personal works, ones with no beginning and no end. In the present work, her brush casts an endless array of pale nets across the surface of this large-scale canvas, displaying the artists’ inner emotions and where her imagination is actualized in an expressive, peaceful motion.

Kusama began her Infinity Nets series in the 1960s. The works in the series express the hallucinations that she began to experience at an early age. During these episodes, the artist felt the ordinary and everyday patterns that surrounded her began to consume her mind in a way that felt endless. This idea is rendered in wandering dots and small swaths of paint ceaselessly encircling the canvas in everlasting waves. The achromatic labyrinth of Infinity Nets (T.W.A) offers a peaceful respite for the viewer’s eye to serenely wander and follow the artist’s meandering paths of the vaporous dots.

From afar, Infinity Nets (T.W.A) appears as expansive and billowing clouds in shades of pale white covered by a delicate web of nets. The composition recalls the infinite space of the universe, as the viewer is invited to explore the boundless space presented before them. Upon closer inspection, the nets are composed of intricate laced loops composed of small dots by Kusama’s circular brushstrokes. The artist meticulously builds up these white brushstrokes, further diversifying the texture, and creating a flurry of white flecks. The brushstrokes additionally create a strong and dynamic physical texture evoking a pulsating sensation as the eye wanders between the endless nets.

To create her Infinity Nets series, Kusama ignores tradition and lays her canvas’ on a flat surface rather than working on a traditional easel. Working in this manner consequently obscures Kusama from viewing the entire composition while she works as she can only focus on one small area at a time. This creates a variation in brushstrokes across the canvas as the repetitive white and gray dabs of paint oscillate between thick and thin brushes. Her meticulous method ultimately produces infinite results in which there is no beginning nor end to the nets. The undulating repetitive swirls of dots across the canvas creates a hypnotic effect where one can lose sight of where one net ends and the next begins. The effect is further intensified by the neutral tones across the vast field of grey dots in varying shades on a ground of sundry grey tones intermixed with white swaths. The delicate balance between the lightness of the whites and the shades of varying greys further energizes this dynamic work.

Infinity Nets (T.W.A.) offers an exciting opportunity to experience one of Kusama’s highly personal works. The infinite expanses of nets across the canvas grants unlimited interpretations of the present work as one explores both Kusama’s inner mind and the endlessness of time and space. The cool tones throughout the present work calm the waves of differing neutral grey hues resulting in a restorative experience as one wanders down the paths of dots intentionally laid before them.