Born 1935, Cincinnati, OH
Divides his time between Washington State and Paris, France
Jim Dine loves things. Influenced as a young artist in the 1960s by Pop art, he turns objects and images from our everyday lives into the subjects of his work. In Two Big Black Hearts, Dine has incorporated casts of various objects, including hands, faces, seashells, hammers, and other tools into the surface of the hearts. While this may appear to be a random combination of objects, the choice of what to include is both intentional and personal. For Dine, the tools reflect childhood memories of the hardware store owned by his grandparents; the hearts function as a "sign that one can care, that there is a constant presence of feeling." The heart is also significant in the larger context of Dine's workâhe has returned to this image time and time again throughout his career, using it as a space on which to project his thoughts and emotions. Dine leaves his personal mark on Two Big Black Hearts both symbolically, by the choice of objects, and physically, by the imprints left by his hands as he worked the surface of the sculpture. In this work, Dine demonstrates his ability to transform the superficial interest in objects that is characteristic of Pop into a language of expression and emotion.