A n explosion of visceral colour, Soul (2013) is a brilliant example of Kusama’s unique style from the celebrated My Eternal Soul series of paintings. The present work is a rarity for the series, including not one but two of Kusama’s archetypal motifs within one composition; a meticulously rendered red Infinity Nets and the artist’s ubiquitous yellow and black colours of her pumpkin paintings and sculptures. The present work’s title pays homage to Kusama’s vision, imbuing the canvas with a spiritual and ontological connection with the artist herself and the joyful endeavour of the series.

Kusama began her widely celebrated body of work, My Eternal Soul, in 2009, in which she explored past themes and formal innovations in an exuberant colour palette. Frances Morris describes Kusama’s My Eternal Soul paintings as “a visual language that recalls many of her iconographic innovations and formal inventions from her earlier years: repeating motifs include flowers, eyes, the artist’s hieroglyphic self-portrait in profile, and, as ever, dots and nets” (Frances Morris. Ed., Yayoi Kusama, London, 2012, p. 153). Roberta Smith, reviewing Kusama’s 2017 exhibition of her My Eternal Soul paintings at David Zwirner, also comments “The patterns in these brightly coloured works include passages of Net-painting, but also numerous mutations: ellipses, eyes, dots, and daubed lines whose patterns resemble enlarged finger prints” (Roberta Smith, “Yayoi Kusama and the Amazing Polka-Dotted, Selfie-Made Journey to Greatness”, The New York t.mes s, 3 November 2017, online).

Bursting with an array of imagery and colours, Kusama’s acrylic paintings are produced by working on a flat, horizontal surface, moving around the border of the canvas to complete her compositions. She has become known for her trademark motifs of dots, nets and pumpkins and in the late 1940s began to experiment with Nihonga, a Japanese style of painting that emphasizes forms and subjects which are unique to native Japanese art. In Soul, Kusama has applied a base web of mesmeric pigment loops in a hypnotic red hue, a mesmerising example of her signature net paintings which were first exhibited in the late 1950s. The clusters black shapes of connective tissue overlain with yellow circles recall Kusama’s fantastical pumpkins, as if seen from above.

Featuring the emblematic dot pattern seen throughout the artist’s oeuvre, these yellow and black elements evoke memories of her family’s seed field where sketching in the open air and watching the cycle of growth and harvest she developed a love of drawing and a deeply felt connection to the Japanese pumpkin. In Soul, it is these black and yellow shapes that immediately captures the attention of the viewer, floating in the infinite space of Kusama’s red net. Indeed, Taft emphasises “the orientation of the canvas (its top, bottom or sides) becomes less relevant than the picture’s centripetal energy” (Ibid.), a small slice of the infinite no matter what way it is viewed. Taft adds, “the focus on centre is a dynamic and deliberate choice that points towards the more existential philosophies underpinning all of Kusama’s work, an acceptance of a driving push toward the unknown that lies at the end of life” (Ibid.).

 
One of the most popular artists working today, Yayoi Kusama holds an important place in the canon of art history, forging her own artistic path and visual language throughout her long, prolific career. After moving back to Japan from New York in the 1970s, Kusama’s work became decidedly more colourful and youthful, as seen decades later with works such as Soul. The My Eternal Soul paintings from 2013 are rarely seen at auction, making Soul an exciting work to come to Asia, a radiant example from one of Kusama’s most favoured series.

《Soul》塗滿迸發自草間彌生內心的燦爛色彩，是出自「我永恆的靈魂」系列的一幅精彩範例，展現了藝術家獨特的創作風格。本作屬於系列中的珍罕之作，單一畫幅中已包含草間常用的兩大母題︰細意描繪的紅色無限網，以及在她的南瓜畫作和雕塑中無處不在的黃黑二色。作品標題是對草間無窮想像的致意，她憑藉腦海的想像，在畫作展示自己的精神思想與創作這個系列時的愉悅暢快有密不可分的關係。

草間從2009年開始創作廣受歡迎的「我永恆的靈魂」系列，利用生氣勃勃的色彩探索以往主題，展示新穎的創作形式。泰特現代藝術館總監弗朗西斯・莫里斯將草間的「我永恆的靈魂」系列畫作形容為「一套令人想起她早年在符號及形式上作出突破和創新的視覺語彙，包括反覆出現的花朵、眼睛、象形文字般的側面自畫像，還有始終不離不棄的圓點和網紋」（弗朗西斯・莫里斯編，《草間彌生》，倫敦，2012年，頁153）。羅伯塔・史密斯評論2017年草間在卓納畫廊展出「我永恆的靈魂」系列時指出：「這些作品色彩鮮豔，不只包含從網紋畫演變而來的紋路，也繪有橢圓形、眼睛、圓點和看似是將指紋放大了的曲線等變異圖案」（羅伯塔・史密斯，〈草間彌生與充滿圓點和自畫像的偉大之旅〉，《紐約時報》，2017年11月3日，網上資源）。

草間以壓克力作畫時，會將畫布放在平面上，然後繞著畫布走，邊走邊畫，形成多變而且色彩豐富的構圖。她一直以圓點、網紋和南瓜等創作標誌而為人熟悉。1940年代末，她開始以日本畫進行試驗，這種繪畫風格十分注重日本藝術特有的造型和主題。在本作中，草間先以迷人的亮紅色繪畫細密的弧形筆觸作網底，令人想起草間在1950年代末展出的經典網紋作品。黑色的不規則形狀在中央聚攏，上綴佈有黑點的黃色圓形，則令人想到草間的迷幻南瓜。本作充滿了在草間作品不斷出現的圓點圖案，黃黑二色的元素代表了草間童年家裡有大片田地播滿種子的回憶，她經常在田地旁邊觀察作物的生長週期和如何收割，作戶外寫生，慢慢培養出對繪畫的熱愛和與南瓜的親厚關係。畫中黃黑相襯的色塊是首先吸引觀眾注意的地方，懸浮在鋪墊了紅色網紋的無限空間中。塔夫特更指出︰「相比起本作展現的向心力，畫作的擺放方向（正放、倒放或側放）已經變得不再重要了」（出處同上）。那只是浩瀚宇宙中的一隅，無論從哪個角度觀賞皆如是。她續指：「令觀者聚焦於中間，是藝術家生動的刻意舖排，反映了潛藏於草間所有作品中的某些存在主義哲思，全心奔向存在於生命盡頭的未知」（出處同上）。

草間彌生是當今最受關注的在世藝術家之一，她漫長的創作生涯碩果纍纍，不但發展出一套獨特的視覺語彙，亦開創了一條與眾不同的藝術之路，地位超然。1970年代，草間從紐約返回日本，此後數十年，就如本作所見，她的作品變得色彩繽紛，充滿青春氣息。自2013年起，廣受世人青睞的「我永恆的靈魂」系列作品就絕少見於拍場，稀有難得，如今系列中的《Soul》現身亞洲拍場，實在令人引頸以待。