Laddie John Dill - Untitled 1979
By the time John Dill (1943- ) was 28, he was offered his first one-man exhibit at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York. Dill's talent and ingenuity have combined to make him a highly regarded national and internationally known contemporary artist. Dill's work is owned by many private collectors and is included in the permanent collections of more than 25 museum. In 1968, while Dill was still in school, he and Chuck Arnoldi formed a small framing business, "Acme Framing Company", and the artist engaged in many serious discussions concerning what htey considered ot be the death of painting. As an apprentice printer at Germini, located in West Hollywood, Dill had the opportunity to work closely with such established artists as Robert Raushchenberg, Jasper Johns, Claud Oldenberg and Roy Lchtenstein. Dialog between artists of the 1970's resulted in experiments with materials previously not considered traditional art media, such as neon, sticks, wax, cement and the relationship of those materials to each other. Dill then moved on to working three-dimensionally and filled a room in his studio with 10,000 pounds of silica sand. It was there that Laddie John Dill mixed light and sand to create pieces, which were more like painting than sculpture. During the 1970's Dill also began experimenting with wall pieces using cement in contrast with the smooth surface of glass. Using natural pigment Dill incorporates, in his work, a wide range of colors from black reds derived, from iron oxide, coal blacks from black sulfur, yellows and naturally mined cobalt blues. Combinations of these natural pigments create a variety of brilliant but still "organic" colors.