Combining large scale paintings on wood panel and anthropomorphic bronze sculptures, Jim Dine explores the notion of creation, its power and its limits. The outsized paintings evoke the painter’s intimate world of studio walls and palettes, their looming presence bringing to mind stage sets, both abstract and figurative. At their heart lie interlaced brass pipes and various tools, either crushed and distorted beyond recognition. As a counterpoint, a group standing sculptures, part machine, part plant, part classical statues, display a rare degree of complexity and technical virtuosity.

Jim Dine, who has been an intermittent Parisian for the last twenty years, is often associated with the pioneering days of New York happenings and the glorious era of the American Pop Art. Yet he remains, fiercely independent, insisting on total freedom of form. The new work demonstrates his capacity to push the boundaries of technical experimentation even further: his bronze surfaces either imitate wood slabs or industrial foam; with their sophisticated colours, the hand-patinated sculptures rival with the paintings. Axes and hammers dialogue with fragments of faces and heart shapes. Disarmingly simple as well as delightfully sophisticated, brutal yet delicate, the new series seeks to reaffirm the absolute freedom of the artist: the power to identify the unchartered territories of beauty.