Details
The image
A rounded form covered in a net of repeating dots, each one placed by hand, the pattern bending where the surface curves. The colour is limited to two tones and the object fills the sheet so completely that there is no background left to read.
Where it comes from
The pumpkin is one of the recurring subjects in Yayoi Kusama’s work: she has returned to it since childhood and it appears in paintings, sculptures and prints as a form that is both familiar and slightly comic. The dot is the unit that builds it, repeated until the surface disappears into pattern, so that an object becomes a field and a field becomes an object. That device came out of her painting and installation work of the 1960s and has since travelled into fashion, packaging and print, where the repetition still does the same job of making something ordinary feel insistent.
On the wall
It suits a kitchen, a studio or a child’s room, where a bold pattern can hold a wall without needing company. Because the palette is limited and the form is simple, it works at almost any size. In a group it should be the piece that sets the rhythm.
In company
Paired with another sheet from the Colorful collection, the tone reads as a decision.Avoid hanging it beside a second dotted pattern, the repetition stops reading as a decision and becomes wallpaper.
