Galerie Daniel Templon is exhibiting the work of American artist Jim Dine for the first time in Brussels, with a new series of abstract paintings.

This new series marks a radical new direction in the artist's work. He has discarded the iconic subjects that filled his paintings – hearts, tools and robes – in order to concentrate on the act of painting itself, submerging recognisable forms in brightly coloured gestural abstractions. His new works are large and made up of layers of acrylic and sand; he has scraped the paint's surface, subtracting and adding material to gradually construct a sculptural materiality.

With this series of works, a living celebration of painting, Jim Dine casts a retrospective eye over Palettes, his series of works from the 1960s that used the palette shape, to which he applied drips and mounds of paint. Titles are drawn from Dine's poem, The Flowering Sheets (2007), evoking the underlying theme of inspiration that is so central to his work.

Considered a pioneer of both the Happenings and Pop art in the 1960s, Jim Dine was quick to strike out on his own very individual path. He looked to the European tradition as expressed by the artists he revered, from Rembrandt to Matisse. Wood, lithography, photography, metal and stone: he has experimented with the whole range of techniques in order to break the rules and push them to their limits. He feels that the tool and process of creation are as important as thefinished work.

Born in Cincinnati in 1935, Jim Dine lives and works between New York, Walla Walla and Paris. Since his first exhibition in 1960, Jim Dine's work has appeared in close to 300 solo exhibitions throughout the world. He has recently exhibited his drawings at the National Gallery in Washington (2004), his sculptures at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles-Malibu (2008), and his drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York (2011). His work is part of over 70 public collections all across the world, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Musée national d’art moderne - Centre Pompidou in Paris and Tate Collection in London. The SK Stiftung Kultur in Cologne will be featuring his work in the My tools exhibition from 19 September 2014 to 22 February 2015.