Short Biography of Jim Dine, Essay Example

Jim Dine is an American painter, performance artist, printmaker, illustrator, sculptor, stage designer and a poet.Dine was born in June 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He struggled with a learning disorder for years and this made him go through school by drawing. At the age of 12, his mother died, and his father sent him to live with his grandparents where he worked in his grandfather’s hardware store andgained experience in art work.

He attended the University of Cincinnati, the School of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, and Ohio University, where he received his B.F.A in 1957. In early 1960’s, Jim Dine moved to New York to begin his career in art. In his book, this is how i remember now, he says, “Pop art is one facet of my work. More than popular images, I’m interested in personal images.”(Dine, 7).Through his interest for personal images, he developed aunique style of art which had personal meaning. This made him to become a rising young star in pop art.

Jim used different kinds of toolsfor example, hammers, screwdrivers, cutting tools, clamps, brushes, palette knives and etching tool; placed them in space, in a vertical format to represent buildings or in a horizontal format to suggest landscapes and used charcoal or pastel as medium, all with the aim of creating what he calls “a vocabulary of feelings”.He continues to use these tools to the present date. However, mostforms are repeated, duplicated, elongated and enlarged.

In his art of the lawn mower, Jim employed an actual lawn mower on a pedestal with handles leaning against the canvas, mounted on the wall and painted the bladeswith blue and yellow paint. He expressed his use of tools as metaphorical stand-ins for the normal human beings as seen in his book, Drawings of Jim Dine (Dine, 110). He mixed these colors, optically to suggest green grass in the area. The painted areas activated the space between the object and painting thus involving the viewer in his work.

Among his first art a pop art piece, the child’s blue wall (1962), based on childhood memories. He used real objects i.e. a light switch on the upper left and a lamp on the lower right which framed a rectangular area filled with gradations of blue print to physically involve viewers in his memories. In his book, activating the space, Jim explains how he deals with his childhood references he has accumulated over the years to make various arts (Dine, 3). A random pattern of positive dots negative stars activated the blue space to showcontrasting realitiesbetween the light of the real night sky, false light of the cartoon like stars, artificial light of the child’s lamp and the gallery lighting illuminating the work.

Palette art defined Jim’s identity and symbolized his profession. This idea came about from a newspaper in 1964 which had a bathrobe advert. He says, in his book, Recent work that “there was nobody in the robe, but it looked like me” (Dine, 112). He came up with a drawing of an empty robe, posed as if the figures’ hands were on its hips framed by a palette. The black palette suggested that it was possible for the robe, i.e. the artist, to be trapped in his profession. The texture and volume of the bathrobes made it to stand out against the dark, flat palette. The thumb hole created a negative space above the robe where the head was visualized. Dine wanted to present himself to the viewers as empty under the behavior imposed to him by the society.

Jim’s art, untitled (five bladed saw), floats in space with its blade facing upwards. The darkened handle used made the focal point of the work hence suggesting that the saw had either been used or was about to be used. The fine scratchy lines created shadows that represented human hair or graphic tools which added to the object’s human quality. He involved his viewers by including his most recognizable motif, the heart.It gave the viewer’s hope that they can change their physical world.

In the two big black hearts (1985), Dine placed various objects on the surface of the hearts e.g. hammers, seashells, hands among other tools. His choice of tools was based on childhood memories that he had accumulated while working in his grandparent’s hardware store. Herecants in his book, activating negative space, that a heart always reminded him of the valentine which he had loved when he was a kid (Dine, 7) .The two hearts functioned as a signthat one can care and that there is always a constant presence of the feeling. He involved his viewers by incorporating objects in the casting process.

The four hearts (1969) used a proportioned combination of color pairs (red-green, blue-orange, yellow-purple) all with the aim of showing a rich emotional feeling. Thin washes making up all these images were blend together and interacted to create new shapes and join the fore ground in both works. The hearts represented his wife. Through his arts he has been able to transform the superficial interest in objects into a language of expression and emotion. “The images I use come from a desire to define my own identity and make a space for myself in the world.”(Dine, 89), a quote from his book, night field: day fields. Jim has gained an enormous popularity from his unique styles of pop art with thousands of people visiting the museums and art galleries in order to see these pieces of art.

Works Cited

Dine,Jim. Night Fields: Day Fields. Gerhagerrd Steidl, New York. 2011. Print.

Dine, Jim. Activating Negative Space. Scholastic Art, New York, 2008. Print.

Dine, Jim. Drawings of Jim Dine. 2004. Gerhagerrd Steidl: New York, 2008. Print.

Dine, Jim. Recent Work. Pace Wildenstein: New York, 2011. Print.

Dine, Jim. This is how I remember, now. Gerhagerrd Steidl, New York, 2008. Print.