During October and November, George Adams Gallery will exhibit new sculpture by Lesley Dill in her seventh solo exhibition with the gallery. Comprised of all new work, the exhibition features sculpture in bronze, layered metal foil, cloth and cast paper.
In this exhibition, while continuing to incorporate language into her sculptures, Dill expands her lexicon of materials and imagery by introducing metal foil and variously scaled figurative elements derived from medieval and eastern sources.
One of the centerpieces of the exhibition is a silver and black metal foil dress entitled Dress of War and Sorrow. Styled in the haute couture manner with a high neck, tight waist, and a flowing train, Dill creates a layered sheath of cut out skeletons taken from Tibetan texts. The result is a sharply morbid glamour, a lament on current world issues. The dress is echoed by a series of laminated metal foil figures that extend along the gallery walls. These figures, also taken from Tibetan and medieval texts, create supporting narrative context for the dress.
The exhibition also presents two near life-size cast fabric figures -one black, one white- suspended just off the floor. In this installation entitled A Single Screw of Flesh Is All That Pins the Soul (2006), Dill plays with the nature of dualities as the two figures appear to be engaged in a dialogue or debate. Words and letters appear as extensions of the human form, protruding, piercing, enveloping the figures.
Other works in the show include a unique bronze bust crowned with an oversized star, a suspended falling girl entitled Floor Lick, and a standing bronze figure with large-scale letters emerging from the back.
The exhibition will also feature Dill?s video performance I Dismantle, a collaboration done with curator Christine Redfern, in its New York debut.
Lesley Dill lives in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Maine. She received her B.A. at Trinity College and went on to receive a Masters in the Philosophy of Education from Smith College. In 1980, she was awarded a M.F.A. from the Maryland Institute of Art. Dill has been a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts Drawing Award in the Printmaking Category, and a National Endowment for the Arts Sculpture Fellowship.
Lesley Dill's work has been widely exhibited and collected and can be found in numerous public collections around the country. In 2002-2003, Dill?s first museum retrospective, Lesley Dill: A Ten Year Survey, organized by the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz, traveled to the CU Art Galleries, University of Colorado, Boulder; Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago; Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; Scottsdale Center for Contemporary Art; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.
Exhibition Checklist
Sounds of War, 2006
Cast copper, metal foil, organza, wire
54 x 46 x 2 inches
LDs 237
"There is a word that bears a sword?" Emily Dickinson
Dress of Throat Song, 2006
Metal foil, organza, wire
59 x 32 1/2 x 1 inches
LDs 232
"...the many throats inside the one throat, each swallowing the unstoppable flood?" Tom Sleigh
Dress of Flame and Upside-Down-Bird, 2006
Metal foil, organza, wire
95 x 45 x 1 inches
LDs 231
"Force flame?" Emily Dickinson
Dress of War and Sorrow, 2006
Metal foil, organza, thread
77 x 77 x 69 inches
LDs 229
Dress of Solace and Undoing, 2006
Metal foil, organza, wire
77 x 42 x 1 inches
LDs 233
"Would a stone stand for a rocket in the hand hurling it? The stone hurled to consummation." Tom Sleigh
A Single Screw of Flesh is All That Pins the Soul, 2006
Organza, ribbon
Installation variable: 120 x 97 x 72 inches
LDs 243
"A single screw of flesh is all that pins the soul?" Emily Dickinson
Floor Lick, 2006
Bronze
24 x 12 x 12 inches
LDs 228
Standing Man with Radiating Words, 2006
Bronze
61 x 35 x 28 inches
LDs 239
"How Ruthless are the Gentle?" Emily Dickinson
Glee with Tears, 2006
Bronze
11 x 8 x 4 inches
LDs 227
"It is a Lonesome Glee?" Emily Dickinson
Dress of Inwardness, 2006
Bronze
60 x 46 x 47 inches
LDs 238
"What is Inwardness?" Rainer Maria Rilke
Dress of Change, 2006
Metal foil, organza, wire
73 x 38 1/2 x 1 inches
LDs 230
Silver Text: "I many times thought peace had come when peace was far away?" Emily Dickinson
Black Text: "How much shall I be changed before I am changed?" Tom Sleigh
