In The Garden of Eden, Jim Dine arranged brightly colored gardening tools alongside small headless replicas of the iconic Venus de Milo statue from ancient Greece. The tools refer to the artist’s childhood, a time when his grandfather owned a hardware store. These are bronze castes of real tools that he painted to suggest a joyful past.

The Venus statues are a recurring theme for the artist. Upon first discovering a Venus de Milo replica, Dine considered it “a timeless classical figure which held the memory of its magnificence even it is reduced size.” In this way, like the tools, these statues become a touchstone for idealized memories. Inspired by how we often embellish the past, Dine’s work evokes nostalgia as an Eden built in the mind, constructed through the passing of time.

While Jim Dine’s work often incorporates every day, mass-produced objects—a tenet of the Pop Art movement—it is also rather personal in nature. The Garden of Eden combines a variety of utilitarian gardening tools with five small-scale versions of the iconic ancient Venus de Milo. The tools recall the artist’s childhood spent in his parents’ hardware store, and the Venus relates to his longstanding interest in the human figure and the history of art.