Red Beard 1973

This is Jim Dine's "Red Beard," and though the date is unknown, it feels pretty immediate. The print is made with an etching. It’s just one colour – red. Look at how Dine has worked with the surface here, scratching and scraping to create something that's both an image of a brush and a kind of atmospheric abstraction. This is what printing can do; the brush seems to hover in a shallow space. See how the etched lines around the handle create a sense of volume and then dissolve into a flat plane? And the bristles, oh, they're like a cloud of red pigment. Dine’s work often dances between representation and abstraction. Think of artists like Jasper Johns, or even going way back to Giorgio Morandi, using everyday objects to explore mark-making, surface, and the sheer joy of seeing. Art's not about answers, it’s about keeping the conversation alive, isn't it?