In a recent Coursera study of Abstract Expressionism at the Museum of Modern Art, I recreated a New York School master painting style for every eight of the masters, but was delighted that I felt the best was saved for last with Yayoi Kusmaa. I wanted to reflect on what I learned from this process and how much more I appreciate this incredible artist.

I most enjoyed painting in the infinity net style of Yayoi Kusama. I found her life story, adversity, and mental health struggles to be a far more compelling motivator for her creative practice than many of the egocentric New York School painters.

While I originally was going to follow the black and white studio prompt, I decided that it would be more than acceptable to go bolder in honor of this polka dot color lover. I admired her Infinity Nets (XAZ) 1999 painting that used red and green complementary colors, so I was inspired to try a complementary color palette as well.

For the background, I went with a deep purple hue, nearly black to create a stark contrast for the lighter foreground I planned on applying. I painted this background with acrylic to allow it to dry quickly, as I was too excited to get started! Once this was dry, I used a soft sandpaper to lightly roughen parts of the surface to create an interesting contrast.

From there, I combined out-of-the-tube titanium white, yellow ochre, and cadmium yellow hue to create a slightly warm and quite pastose paint, almost the thickness of toothpaste to start. I had a hard time accepting the sculptural use of oil in this case; I usually paint so thinly that leaning into and accepting this pastose sculptural way of painting with oil took some getting used to.  I also found it so hard to let the “scoop” of paint troweled from this pastose paint just be- I really really wanted to thin it out with medium and dab off the excess paint, but held true to Yayoi’s taught style and just went with it! This rich impasto created interest, but also made the brush strokes quite visible, especially as the edge of the brush created dips and valleys.

The absolute hardest part of this process was just letting the paint be, and not doing any aggressive editing after I applied the paint. I’m such an over-fusser and over-worker in many of own paintings, so just accepting what I had created with the first stroke and leaving it as-is definitely was anxiety-provoking for me. However, in the end, I appreciate how much variance this impasto created against the lower viscosity sections thereafter and really worked well in contributing to the overall optical flow of the all over composition.

I tried to mimic the shapes and brushstroke style saw in her 1997 green on yellow nets- creating a small “C” like loop shape, flicking my wrist ever so slightly, with most of the movement coming from my index and middle finger as my thumb maintained control and my elbow and armed remained completely steady. I chose a number 4 round brush against a 12”x16” gessoed canvas, and made a point of maintaining the same color, speed, motion, and size as I repeated these small gestures over and over.

Just as Yayoi created interest in her pieces by varying the viscosity of the paint and the angle with which she was painting, I rotated my canvas 90 degrees every 10 minutes or so. I love how this subtle change made such a difference in the movement of the overall composition. I also started varying the viscosity of the same color as I went along in sections. The first section I used the thick pastose sculptural approach. The second section I added a lot of linseed oil to thin the paint out and make it super low viscosity, which created an entirely new brushstroke. With how much more fluid the paint became, I needed to be hyper cognizant of not letting my brushstrokes get out of control in this section. Later, after this section of paint ran out, I added a little mineral spirits to the same color combo to create an even thinner, more transparent section. After this ran out, I created the same color combo with fat medium and a little damar varnish to create an interesting glossy effect. Lastly, I did a small section with the same color and walnut oil, to create a clean, glossy, and smooth effect. I wish I had some Megilp to get a honey-like section, but in its stead went with a lean medium and linseed oil subtle mixing combo to get a similar butter-like feel to the paint.

The absolute best part of this process was letting myself get lost in it- it was so very therapeutic to accept the repetition and remain hyper focused while creating a simple yet subtly complex painting. I understand completely how meditative this practice must have felt for Yayoi. I can see how this manifestation of repetition with its subtle complexities and intertwining weaves of interest provided both a representation of and a solace from her mental illness. I had so much fun in this process I decided to try experimenting with additional mediums and colors in new pieces after this studio prompt! I LOVE Yayoi’s work and so appreciated being able to assimilate it. I even made a time lapse video of my process: https://www.instagram.com/p/CShgC0DnnxK/ !