Pontic Rhododendron 1984

Jim Dine made this print, Pontic Rhododendron, using etching. See how the lines have a kind of raw, scratched quality? That comes from the directness of the process, you’re really digging into the plate. The background is this furious, scribbly mess, almost like he couldn’t decide whether to leave it blank or not, and I love that indecision, that process being so visible. It’s like he’s saying, “Here’s the flower, but here’s also all the stuff around it, the energy, the doubt.” Then you’ve got the flower itself, more defined, but still wobbly, human. The leaves are silhouetted, bold and dark. It reminds me a bit of Cy Twombly’s botanical drawings, but Dine’s got this tougher, more graphic edge. With Jim Dine you often get the sense that there's more than one way to interpret something, and the artist is always trying to find out what that could be.