Jim Dine
The Black Paintings
October 25, 2018 - January 11, 2019

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 25, 6-8 PM
Richard Gray Gallery, New York

Richard Gray Gallery is pleased to announce The Black Paintings, a solo exhibition of recent abstract works by Jim Dine, on view at the gallery’s New York location from October 25, 2018 through January 11, 2019. The exhibition opens with a reception for the artist on Thursday, October 25 from 6-8 PM.

The Black Paintings are a series of eight large-format works first conceived in 2015 at Jim Dine’s studio in Walla Walla, Washington. Built from a thick impasto of acrylic paint, sand and charcoal, Dine carefully works each canvas with an electric sander to achieve distinct and textured surfaces. A dominant configuration of related black shapes anchors the composition of each painting, which the artist explains  “evokes a figurative image that was (and is) human, yet [is] visually concrete so that the black forms can be interpreted unconsciously as many things.”

The group of eight canvases makes its US debut at Richard Gray Gallery, having been shown in 2017 at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. Championed by Accademia lecturer and architect Francesco Moschini, the paintings "tell us things that cannot be guessed at from even the most perfect of photographs…there is an order to the action and an astutely calibrated tension between the darker areas and those that are lighter in color.”

Jim Dine: The Black Paintings is the artist’s fourteenth solo exhibition with Richard Gray Gallery, and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an introductory text by the artist.