During the 60s and 70s Yoshida had largely been painting on paper, working, on a small scale, in a recognisably abstract expressionist style. From the early 80s he devoted himself to ever larger works in oil on canvas, which incorporated gold, silver and platinum leaf sections that derive entirely from the Japanese tradition. With his unique title now firmly established as 命 - Inochi (or Life), these larger canvases became increasingly cosmic and mystical, often seeming, in the fine formulation of Lawrence Smith, former Keeper of Japanese Prints at the British Museum, ‘to be portraits of the created universe itself.’ In this large canvas from Yoshida’s mature period, a pair of teardrop shapes, in silver and gold leaf, revolve on the right-hand side of the canvas, forming an abstracted Taiji symbol in which both forms circle in towards each other. In ancient Chinese (Daoist) philosophy, these twin complementary forms (representing Yin and Yang) perfectly balance one another, together representing the Taiji or Great Universal Nature. However, Yoshida’s imaginative rendering of this active spiral of universal energy seems to draw into motion other distant universes composed of similar whirling shapes, all moving against the inky background of still deepening extended space. The abstract daubs of paint streaming between these spiralling galaxies, serve to heighten the sense of energetic movement in this panoramic, multiversal piece.