Mika Yoshitake:

Notice how Kusama’s Infinity Net paintings have no obvious centre or focal point in them. Just like an Asian landscape painting, which invites us to wander through the scene and travel with our eyes, Kusama’s Infinity Net pattern covers the entire canvas. As you wander in this abstract landscape and give space to your imagination, you might start to feel enveloped by the work and experience a sense of majesty. It may feel like you are walking on clouds, looking down on the earth over a fogged forest, or flying above a vast ocean gleaming with fantastical colours.

Capturing the experience of infinity through art has been one of Kusama’s career-long goals. She began her Infinity Net series in 1959 when she was living in New York. Paintings in the series from the 1950s and '60s usually feature muted tones or primary colours. In contrast, the four-panel painting in front of you has an unusual palette of neon and iridescent colours. Kusama made this work in 2011, after the earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region of Japan, and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster. The eerie colours disperse over the panels like radioactive contamination after a nuclear meltdown, or an oil spill in the ocean.

The painting’s title, Transmigration, refers to the act of passing from one state to another: a concept integral to the Buddhist belief of reincarnation. Aware of the magnitude of the catastrophe that affected Japan, Kusama created a piece that transforms a disaster into a message of hope and regeneration.

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