Woodcut with Teal and Yellow 2013

Jim Dine made this woodcut with teal and yellow, and you can imagine the labor of love, the physical graft of carving into wood. It’s a really visceral process, isn’t it? I’m thinking about Dine in his studio, maybe listening to music, really going into the zone, wrestling with this big block of wood. What was he thinking when he decided to make this work? Was he looking at a classical sculpture? Or maybe he was thinking about fragments, about what it means to be incomplete. The woodcut lines give the form such graphic power, and the yellow feels almost electric against the cool teal. The texture gives it so much depth. It reminds me a bit of late Guston, where there’s this return to figuration, but it’s all charged with this raw, expressive energy. You can feel the history of art kind of humming beneath the surface. Artists are always in conversation, borrowing, stealing, and transforming ideas. They are working to make something new that still resonates with the past. This piece really resonates with me, and I hope it does with you too.