In the manner of Yayoi Kusama
Japanese, b. 1929
Phone, Obliterated, 2026
Acrylic on canvas
162 × 162 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.23.2
A phone lies on a table, and the phone, the table, its shadow and the wall behind are all covered in red dots on white, so that the phone is only a slightly raised rectangle in the pattern. It has vanished into its surroundings, which is the opposite of what a phone usually does. Kusama speaks of self-obliteration, letting the dots erase the self. This is phone obliteration. It is very restful.
The brief
A smartphone lying on a table where phone, table and shadow are all covered in red dots on white, the phone barely distinguishable. Contemporary painting of obsessive repeated dots and nets, dense polka dots in graduated sizes covering every surface, red on white, yellow on black, undulating net patterns, hallucinatory flatness, the object dissolving into pattern, thick even acrylic with hand-painted irregularity. Museum photograph of the acrylic painting, flat even lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
