This painting is to be sold with a registration card issued by Yayoi Kusama Studio.
Catalogue Note:
'' Each of my creation is a step in my life's journey as I fight for the truth with pen, canvas, or other media. Ahead of me is a distant and radiant star. The more I try to touch it, the further away I am from it. But with my spiritual strength and a desire to create my own path, I have brocken free and climbed out of the world's intricate chaos; step by step, I even approach the realm of the soul! '' －YAYOI KUSAMA

Throughout her life, Kusama has continuously been testing and constructing her ''limitless'' world. Already in her 80s, this ''crazy old lady'' has always been able to make waves with new trends, becoming an A-list artist with a fanatical cult following. Sporting a red bob wig and bright yellow dotted coat, her style is eye-catching and ostentatious; her eyes sparkle with creative power. She paints her own world in colorful dots, dense and strange-looking. In fact, she is “using the finite to pursue the infinite”.

In 1956, Kusama moved to New York City and emerged as a leader of avant-garde art in the United States. She co-exhibited with prominent contemporary artists such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and Jasper Johns. Kusama once explained that these visual features came from her hallucinations. She believed these dots formed vast “limitless nets” representing her life. She believes that the net structure symbolizes the vital nature of life.

Kusama sees art as an expression of her mental illness. Within her artwork, the most prominent motifs are dots and nets with no lines. Ashtray is a brilliant work in which two of Kusama’s most iconic artistic elements are presented in black, white and grey. In the 1980s, Kusama created a large number of tricolor and primary color works. The subjects of her works during this period were mostly concrete objects, including everything from pumpkins and highheeled shoes to cakes, dresses, Mount Fuji, ashtrays, and so on.

The main body of Ashtray is composed in a classical dot pattern in black, with the bottom and edge of the ashtray defined and outlined by the background of geometric shapes. The granular texture is doubled, and the shapes are irregular sizes. The dots are randomly arranged, creating an undulating visual effect that looks like a threedimensional relief sculpture. The monochrome first leaves the viewer feeling blank, allowing the atmosphere of suggestion and silence to take effect slowly, gradually drawing the viewer into the ''infinity'' vortex. The net-like texture of the background is inversely colored to the pattern on the surface, allowing the work, within a twodimensional expression, to also express three-dimensionality, with far and near, concave and convex. The work evokes changing moods, sometimes tense, sometimes soothing.

The overall style of the painting is somewhat like the fine, tight carvings of a copperplate, or a delicate, flawless piece of lace. The use of strong color contrast in the dots and lines perfectly reflects the artist's pontaneous nature. The technique of expression has transcended the cultural challenge of East vs. West; rather, it combines the characteristics of both sides, and demonstrates the unique style which Kusama gradually developed by herself. In her early creations, Kusama sought to first cover the canvas with a static and complete base, then add as much texture to the surface of the base as possible, arranging micro-patterns together section by section. Because these tiny brushstrokes are time-consuming and require constant movement, the white paint dries and cracks, creating a more multilayered appearance. At the physical level, this technique can create a sense of layers of substance extending into infinity.

As the artist puts it, ''I want to use infinite repetition of rhythm and black and white monochrome tones to present a different ‘lighting’ and seek a new form of painting. This technique can't be interpreted in terms of traditional painting conventions, conventional comparisons, or methodology. In addition, this series of works abandons the fixed focal point and visual center of gravity; this is my original creation”. These individual dots of color are an aggregated quantum; they are holes inverted in black and white. I have a wish: I wish that I can master these dots and measure the infinity of the universe from where I stand in it.