Jim Dine
Jim Dine is an American painter, sculptor, printmaker, illustrator, performance artist, stage designer and poet. (Whew! What a boss) He studied art at the Cincinnati Arts Academy and the Boston Museum School and Ohio University. In 1958 he moved to New York. Dine’s first involvement with the art world was in his Happenings of 1959–60. These historic theatrical events took place in chaotic, makeshift environments built by the artist–performer. During the same period he created his first assemblages, which incorporated found materials. Simultaneously he developed the method by which he produced his best known work—paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures that depict and expressively interpret common images and objects (what we now know as pop art)
Clothing and domestic objects featured prominently in Dine’s paintings of the 1960s, with a range of favoured motifs including ties, shoes and bathroom items such as basins, showers and toothbrushes. He was equally preoccupied with the elements of his own profession, for example palettes, paint-boxes and brushes, as well as with a variety of tools, which he regarded as extensions of the hand. Dine’s method involved repeating his theme again and again, often in several mediums. Through a process of exploration and reinvention the common image lost its place in the public domain and was stamped exclusively with the artist’s signature, becoming his vehicle for communicating a range of emotional and aesthetic intentions. He is often considered a modern individualist. While he was part of a group during the time of the Happenings and was linked with the Pop art movement through his use of subjects from everyday life, he was at odds with Pop’s deadpan style and then with pure abstraction, Minimalism and conceptual art.
While Dine has remained devoted to the depiction and incorporation of common objects, elevated to an almost iconic stature, his changing expressive intentions and his experimental approach towards technique have yielded different stylistic results. Although Dine’s stylistic shifts do not follow a clear, linear path, it can generally be stated that his work of the early 1960s is characterized by the aggressive, haphazard energy of his Happenings and the heritage of the Abstract Expressionist gesture. What I find to be the most interesting about the evolution of his work also can be frustrating when you yourself are going through a metamorphosis. Dine's work is really something to behold, all of it. He will remain a prolific artist until the day he dies.
Jim Dine is an American painter, sculptor, printmaker, illustrator, performance artist, stage designer and poet. (Whew! What a boss) He studied art at the Cincinnati Arts Academy and the Boston Museum School and Ohio University. In 1958 he moved to New York. Dine’s first involvement with the art world was in his Happenings of 1959–60. These historic theatrical events took place in chaotic, makeshift environments built by the artist–performer. During the same period he created his first assemblages, which incorporated found materials. Simultaneously he developed the method by which he produced his best known work—paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures that depict and expressively interpret common images and objects (what we now know as pop art)
Clothing and domestic objects featured prominently in Dine’s paintings of the 1960s, with a range of favoured motifs including ties, shoes and bathroom items such as basins, showers and toothbrushes. He was equally preoccupied with the elements of his own profession, for example palettes, paint-boxes and brushes, as well as with a variety of tools, which he regarded as extensions of the hand. Dine’s method involved repeating his theme again and again, often in several mediums. Through a process of exploration and reinvention the common image lost its place in the public domain and was stamped exclusively with the artist’s signature, becoming his vehicle for communicating a range of emotional and aesthetic intentions. He is often considered a modern individualist. While he was part of a group during the time of the Happenings and was linked with the Pop art movement through his use of subjects from everyday life, he was at odds with Pop’s deadpan style and then with pure abstraction, Minimalism and conceptual art.
While Dine has remained devoted to the depiction and incorporation of common objects, elevated to an almost iconic stature, his changing expressive intentions and his experimental approach towards technique have yielded different stylistic results. Although Dine’s stylistic shifts do not follow a clear, linear path, it can generally be stated that his work of the early 1960s is characterized by the aggressive, haphazard energy of his Happenings and the heritage of the Abstract Expressionist gesture. What I find to be the most interesting about the evolution of his work also can be frustrating when you yourself are going through a metamorphosis. Dine's work is really something to behold, all of it. He will remain a prolific artist until the day he dies.
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