LORA REYNOLDS GALLERY
AUSTIN, TX
The 360 Tower
360 Nueces Street
Austin, TX
LADDIE JOHN DILL
Laddie John Dill, a Los Angeles artist, had his first solo exhibition in New York City with Ileana Sonnabend Gallery in 1971. He was one of the first Los Angeles artists to exhibit “light and space” work in New York. He exhibited the “Light Sentences” and “Light Plains” in institutions across the United States and globally, and has enjoyed a resurgence of interest in these pieces in the last decade as well, including a recent acquisition of a “Light Plains” sculpture by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It it currently on view in Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. Dill has been crafting light and earthly materials like concrete, glass, sand, and metal into luminous sculptures, wall –pieces, and installations since the 1970s. Referring to his choice of materials, Dill explains: “I was influenced by [Robert] Rauschenberg, Keith Sonnier, Robert Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim, and Robert Irwin, who were working with earth materials, light, and space as an alternative to easel painting.”
Laddie John Dill was born in Long Beach, CA in 1943. He graduated from Chouinard Art Institute in 1968 with a BFA. After graduating, Dill became a printing apprentice and worked closely with established artists, like Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jasper Johns. Laddie John Dill’s work is in the permanent collections of national and international institutions such as Museum of Modern Art, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; High Museum, GA; The Phillips Collection, DC; Chicago Art Institute, IL; Smithsonian, DC; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; Pio Monte della Misericordia, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; and Museo Jumex, Mexico. He currently lives and works in Venice, CA where he maintains a studio.