Yayoi Kusama // Blue & Red Nets, 1960

  • Yayoi Kusama, Blue & Red Nets, 1960. Oil on panel, 48.5 × 43.5 cm. Early Infinity Net painting with blue and red looping brushstrokes, signed and dated on the reverse.
    Blue & Red Nets, 1960
    Oil on panel, 48.5 × 43.5 cm
    © Yayoi Kusama. Image reproduced for educational and informational purposes only.
     
    Painted in 1960, Blue & Red Nets is an oil on panel measuring 48.5 × 43.5 cm. Signed, titled, and dated on the reverse, the work is part of Kusama’s early Infinity Net series. Here she experiments with colour variation, applying her looping brushstrokes in contrasting blue and red, rather than the monochrome schemes that characterised many of her other Net paintings from this period.

  • “I am deeply interested in trying to understand the universe by obliterating myself with polka dots.”

     — Yayoi Kusama

    The painting reflects Kusama’s interest in how repetition and variation could alter perception. By layering colour in loops and arcs, she generates a shifting surface that feels simultaneously structured and organic. This approach underscores her lifelong obsession with infinity, self-obliteration, and the dissolution of boundaries between figure and ground. As an early departure from her typical white-on-colour Net canvases, Blue & Red Nets offers a rare glimpse into her evolving methods at a critical stage of her career.