Lesley Dill, Wilderness

For Lesley Dill, Wilderness: Light Sizzles Around Me, Lesley Dill (American, born 1950) created a new body of work drawing on language, the written word, and the investigation of divinity and devilry during the wilderness of Early America. Her pieces take the forms of long thin figures that wear the strength of the words of the people they represent. Though differing in specific experience, each of these personas have had a powerful impact through their words, and personally connect with the artist. Dill believes that there is something untamable, fierce, and persistent in each of their beliefs, which ultimately unites them. She is drawn to this restrictive time period of limited access to a diversity of written word and the bravery of these figures’ response.

Dill presents a new way of reading and absorbing the words of these idiosyncratic figures. The painted and sewn letters in her work take on a formal quality of their own, not legible in the same way as we are accustomed, leaving a considerable impact on the viewer. Dill found inspiration in the poetry, prose, and declarations of early New England figures and also represents religious crusaders, social activists, and Native American leaders such as  by the Sauk warrior Black Hawk, the self-taught artist and Alabama native, Sister Gertrude Morgan, and Mother Ann Lee, the leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, or Shakers. The artist incorporates their words into two and three-dimensional wall hangings and sculptures.

Lesley Dill was born in Bronxville, New York, grew up in Maine and the Adirondacks, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her performances, sculptures, and works on paper and fabric are composed of materials such as horsehair, muslin, thread, photography, and metal. Since the early 1980s, Dill has had over 100 solo exhibitions and her work is found in museum collections worldwide. Recently, Dill became a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.