LEMON TEA

The delicate brushwork and intricately connected pattern on Lemon Tea (Lot 108) by Yayoi Kusama transforms this glass of refreshing summer drink into an interlocking sensory space. Completed in 1981, Lemon Tea exudes a sense of space that is enigmatic and mesmerizing. The jagged border in sky blue with white polka dots guides the viewer’s sight into the image to wander in the intricately intermeshing world composed with polka dots and webbed patterns. Although the tea glass adopts a planar form, however, a sense of dimensionality is neatly interlaced together with the geometric webbed-pattern on the surface of the glass, the brick-like pattern at the bottom, and the polka dots of various sizes on the upper inner surface of the glass. At the same time, this simple, figurative object is also transcended into an abstract visual space. Seven patterns often used by Kusama are applied here on the slice of lemon to illustrate the composition of the citrus fruit and how it is wedged on the rim of the glass. The section behind the transparent glass is vividly depicted to showcase the penetrative nature and visual reflection. The details created by Kusama with ingeniously interconnected and contorted net patterns and other shapes allow this artwork, Lemon Tea, to transform into a visual journey that ripples, penetrates, and glimmers.