A still-life subject Kusama returned to throughout the 1980s, the grape cluster offered her a natural form whose round, repeating units mapped onto her vocabulary of dots and accumulation. This 1983 screenprint likely depicts a single bunch isolated against a flat ground, the individual fruits flattened into a tessellated pattern of circles. The screenprint process, with its layered flat colours and crisp registration, lends itself to this kind of subject — each grape can be printed as a discrete disc of colour and the whole composition reads as a graphic device rather than an observational study. Grapes connect to the broader still-life strand of Kusama's print output during this period, alongside lemons, strawberries, and other fruits, all of which she treats less as botanical subjects than as occasions to deploy her accumulative geometry. The work sits within the productive print activity Kusama developed after her 1977 admission to Seiwa Hospital in Tokyo, where she has lived voluntarily ever since while continuing a daily studio practice.
Grapes, Kusama 29 was created by Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生).
Grapes, Kusama 29 uses Silkscreen, on screenprint.
Grapes, Kusama 29 depicts still life.
