11 April – 4 May 2002

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is excited to present an important exhibition of the internationally-renowned Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama. Kusama is probably the most famous living Japanese contemporary artist today. Since the late 1950s in New York, she has pursued themes of infinity and compulsive repetition. She employs endlessly accumulating patterns on monochromatic backgrounds to produce a kinetic visual buzz.

Kusama's balloon installation work is a development of her 'infinity' theme. During the exhibition, the large gallery at Roslyn Oxley9 will be transformed into a mesmerising, dotted, white world within which large, amorphous balloon shapes hover. Through her installation work, Kusama brings her obsessional vision to its limit, creating environments which overwhelm the visual and cognitive apparatus of the viewer with her maniacal imposition of colour, shape and pattern.

The large scale, repetition and stunning originality of Kusama's work has a forceful reach. Her compelling installations embed themselves firmly in audience memory. As much as it is 'seen', her art is 'experienced'.

The exhibition will feature a large balloon installation in the main gallery, several major paintings, along with a number of small sculptural pieces and 'sculpture paintings'.

In 1993 Yayoi Kusama represented Japan at the 45th Venice Biennale. In 1998, a large retrospective exhibition of her work was organised by the Museum of Modern Art, New York and toured to Los Angeles and Tokyo. In Australia, Kusama was included in the 2000 Biennale of Sydney and, later this year, will feature prominently in the Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane. Kusama's work is held by many important public collections around the world including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Musee national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.

This exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery was the first major solo exhibition of Kusama's work in Australia and was opened by the late Edmund Capon AM OBE, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.


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