W ith a combination of two signature forms—nets and dots—Lemon Tea by Yayoi Kusama offers viewers a mirage of multiplication and repetition spread across the canvas. One of the most popular artists working today, Kusama holds an important place in the canon of art history, forging her own artistic path and visual language throughout her long, prolific career. A significant example of Kusama’s depiction of everyday objects, from coffee cups to high-heel shoes, in her signature aesthetic of nets and dots, Lemon Tea is definitive of Kusama’s ability to instill the typically mundane with a magical, hypnotic quality. The fluctuation of large dots to small dots as seen in the straw and inside of the glass, transform the three-dimensional object, focusing deeply on the structural relationship between shape and line. Through works such as this, Kusama remodels the traditional notion of still life through abstraction, manipulating perspective through the flattening of space. To the artist, the repetition of forms in her paintings has provided a vital form of personal art therapy, a response to the hallucinations that she has had since her childhood and her method of self-obliteration. A dazzling patchwork of dots and nets that are harmoniously arranged to evoke the notion of three-dimensionality, the idea of universal infinite is also evident in the painting, exhibiting an intensity of personal obsession and cosmic infinity. While works such as Lemon Tea are expressive of Kusama’s unique artistic language and vision, their hypnotic qualities recall Bridget Riley’s Op art paintings and their resonant rhythmic effect, as well as the seriality of Andy Warhol's Pop silkscreens.

The 1980s was a significant period for Kusama, returning to Japan and moving to Tokyo permanently in 1973, where she set up a studio. In the early 1980s, the artist returned to painting after a period focusing primarily on public performance in the late 1960s, producing meticulous works such as Lemon Tea. Curator and author Laura Hoptman has described Kusama’s works from the 1980s as a development of, but also reiteration of, her previous signature motifs of her earlier works: “Like many artists of her generation, Kusama has anthologised her own work, recreating, with her signature obsessive will to repetition, the net, the dot and the phallus in seemingly endless variation.

So closely do some of her Infinity Nets of the 1980s resemble those of the early 1960s that works completed in Japan are still mistaken for those made almost thirty years before in New York. This kind of confusion notwithstanding, Kusama does not, like the ages Girogio de Chirico, copy the same ‘classic’ painting over and over again. Her work from the 1980s and the 1990s differs from that of the 1950s and 1960s because until the end of the 1990s it has lacked two important qualities—her insistence on an aesthetic of the handmade over that of the machine and, concomitantly, the self-referential abstraction inherent in her signature motifs” (Laura Hoptman, “Yayoi Kusama: A reckoning”, in Akira Tatehata et al., Yayoi Kusama, New York, 2017, p. 65). Further, Hoptman argues that Kusama’s works from the 1980s and 1990s are defined by a distinct precision and indeed, perfection: “It is as if Kusama has realised that her identity has finally been established and the t.mes has arrived for its free proliferation and franchise” (Ibid., p. 71).

草間彌生的《檸檬茶》糅合了網紋及圓點兩款經典圖案，以不斷重複及延伸的圖案營造出幻覺般的視覺體驗。草間彌生是當今最多人關注的在世藝術家之一，她漫長的創作生涯成果豐碩，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，在藝術史上地位斐然。草間常以招牌的網紋及圓點詮釋咖啡杯、高跟鞋等各式各樣的日常物件，亦擅長為尋常物件注入魔法般的魅力，帶領觀者進入被催眠般的境界，《檸檬茶》正正體現了草間這些特色及才華。畫中吸管及玻璃杯上的圓點時大時小，改變了立體物件的外在，突出形狀與線條之間的結構關係。透過這樣的作品，草間以抽象風格重塑了靜物畫的傳統，強調畫作的扁平感從而操控視角。在創作中不斷重複繪畫同一圖案是對草間極為重要的藝術療法，她以這方法應對從孩童時期開始體驗到的幻覺，同時也藉這一過程「自我消融」。令人目眩神迷的圓點及網紋精密而和諧地並列著，呈現出立體的視覺效果。本作亦可見藝術家對重複圖案的強烈迷戀以及宇宙般無盡的意象，反映了她心目中萬物無止無盡的概念。《檸檬茶》等作品不但展現了草間獨一無二的藝術語彙及創作構思，當中催眠般的特質亦令人聯想起碧姬．萊莉的「歐普藝術」（Op art）那彷彿在共鳴、律動的視覺效果，以及安迪．沃荷普普絲網版畫系列的連貫性。

草間於1973年回流日本，長居東京並在當地設下工作室；其後的1980年代對草間意義深重。草間開始摒棄自1960年代起常作的公開表演藝術，在1980年代初期再次繪畫並創作出《檸檬茶》等細緻精密的作品。策展人及作家蘿拉．霍普特曼（Laura Hoptman）曾形容草間自1980年代開始創作的作品是在重複和延伸早期創作中的標誌性主題，她指出：「與許多藝術家一樣，草間亦重現了自己某些作品，並重新詮釋她對重複、網紋、圓點及陽具的迷戀，發展出數之不盡的變化。草間部分在日本創作的1980年代『無限網』作品，與在紐約時創作的1960年代初期作品非常相似，兩者相差接近30年，但亦常常被人錯認。雖然這種誤認時有發生，但草間並不像喬治・德・基里科般不斷重複臨摹同一幅『經典』畫作。她在1980至1990年代的創作手法，與1950至1960年代相比，分別在於90年代末前的作品缺乏了兩種重要特質，包括她堅持手繪而非以機器創作的美學執著，以及藉著經典的主題圖案反映出屬於她自己的抽象風格。」（蘿拉．霍普特曼，〈細數草間彌生〉，建畠晢等著，《草間彌生》，紐約，2017，頁65）此外，霍普特曼亦認為，草間1980至1990年代的作品的精密程度獨一無二，可謂近乎完美，她表示：「這就好像草間終於發現，自己的身份已被確立，是時候自由自在地擴散發展、自成一家。」（同上，頁71）