Lesley Dill (American, b. 1950)
Dill is a prominent artist working between language and art. She creates sculptures, installations, mixed-media photographs, and performances which draw on her travels and interest in spirituality. Her work utilizes the poetry and writings of Emily Dickinson, Franz Kafka, and Rainer Maria Rilke, among other. Often secret and bold meanings emerge in Dill’s pieces by feeling the sounds of the words and language as a visceral, bodily experience.
Dill received a BA in English from Trinity College, a MA in Teaching from Smith College in 1974, and a MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, starting her artistic career in her late twenties. Books and literature, as well as craftwork, infuse her mixed-media pieces. Dill’s work can be found in the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Brooklyn Museum; Cleveland Museum of Art; High Museum, Atlanta; Kemper Museum, Kansas City; and Yale University Art Gallery. In 2002, Dill’s first museum retrospective, Lesley Dill: A Ten Year Survey was organized by the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz and traveled around the US.
