Yayoi Kusama's Flowers (2002) places three blooms and two butterflies against a deep black ground covered in a blue network of irregular lines — the flowers in pink, white and yellow-orange, the butterflies in yellow and green, the stems in deep green, the whole image vivid and saturated against the darkness behind it. The large pink flower on the left dominates the lower half of the image, its petals covered in a pattern of small dots radiating from a yellow centre, the stem rendered in green with a tight spiral of marks running along its length. To its right a white flower carries large pink and red dots across its petals, an eye-like mark at its centre — the same eye motif that appears in Eyes Flying in the Sky, here embedded within a floral form.

Above and between the two blooms, a yellow-orange flower on a shorter stem has petals that read almost as feathers, their texture different from the other two. The two butterflies hover in the upper portion of the image, their wings covered in dots and grid marks, the smaller one in green, the larger in yellow. The inclusion of butterflies connects this work to a Japanese artistic tradition in which the butterfly carries associations of transformation, the soul, and transience — themes that run through both Western and Eastern flower painting.

For more information or to buy Flowers by Yayoi Kusama, contact our specialists using the enquiry button above.