A continuation from the artist’s fundamental concept of the fine mesh of patterns from her minimalistic series “Infinity Nets”, Yayoi Kusama’s Still Life ventures into the artist’s exploration of the avant garde, navigating between the East and West. Executed in 1996, the present lot depicts an addition of Kusama’s iconic dots and organic symbols. With a combination of two signature forms: nets and dots, Still Life offers viewers a mirage of multiplication and repetition spread across the canvas. Such composition is rare in Kusama’s fruit paintings, who began painting fruits in the 1970’s and only moved on to creating a larger scope of works after moving to a spacious studio in 2000.

With the love for pumpkins and fruits, Still Life projects the artist’s essence on a small but intimate scale. Utilizing an intricate geometric arrangement that sets as the background, the bowl of fruits in this painting further advocates Kusama’s strong understanding between perspective, space and composition. The early hallucinations experienced by Kusama has given her an abundancy of inspirations in her creations, “I found myself trembling ... with fear, amid flowers incarnate, which had appeared all of a sudden. I was surrounded by several hundreds of violets ...with uncanny expressions ... chatting among themselves just like human beings.” Nets and dots similar to dissections of plants could be seen through the artist’s widespread career, injecting a source of mystery and life into the rhythmic objects in her paintings, the act of painting enabled the artist to overcome the vehemence of her psychological traumas.

The circular transformations of large dots to small dots transforms the three-dimensional object, focusing deeply on the structural relationship between shape and line. Still Life eliminates the banality in the space, pushing out vibrant, flat colours throughout the composition. Through this act of decoration, the idea of universal infinite is evident in the painting, exhausting an intensity of personal obsession and cosmic infinity.

草間彌生的「無限網」以無數規律的網狀細小圓點構成，風格簡潔均整，《靜物》延續了這個風格，並見證藝術家在前衛藝術的世界中探索、遊走在東西方之間。《靜物》創作於1996年，融合草間彌生經典的圓點和有機象徵符號，畫布上的網狀圖案和圓點營造出不斷增生和重複的錯視效果；這種構圖在草間的水果題材作品中非常罕見。草間在1970年代開始繪畫水果；但直至2000年，她搬到空間更寬敞的工作室後，才開始創作更大型的水果主題作品。

《靜物》尺幅小巧，不但展現了藝術家對南瓜及水果的熱愛，更包涵她的創作精華。草間以複雜的幾何紋理為背景，充分地展現了她對於透視法、空間及構圖的掌握。草間兒時曾被幻覺纏擾，這些體驗豐富了她的創作靈感，她如此形容自己的經歷：「我發現自己在顫抖⋯⋯充滿著恐懼，身處在看似是花朵化身的東西之中，這一切都是突然出現。我被數百朵紫羅蘭包圍⋯⋯它們的表情詭異 ⋯⋯就像人類一樣在聊天。」草間作品中的網紋和圓點與解剖後的植物相似，它們經常出現於她的創作之中，為她筆下的日常物件添上神秘感與生命力。至於繪畫行為本身，則是草間緩解心理創傷的良藥。

畫中的大圓點循循化成小圓點，改變了立體物件的外在，讓形狀與線條之間的結構關係更為突出。《靜物》抹除了空間的空洞平庸感，讓鮮明、平實的色調脫穎而出。藝術家透過這種裝飾手法，在畫布上呈現她心目中宇宙萬物無止無盡的概念。