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Lesley Dill

@lesleydill1

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Looking forward to tomorrow's talk at the Asheville Art Museum:
This Tuesday, October 6 at 6pm—
join us for an evening with New York-based artist @lesleydill1, whose artwork is featured in the current exhibition, "The Art of Paper," and in the Asheville Art Museum Collection.

Dill will talk about her projects that involve paper and collaboration, from huge community and large-scale installations to the intimate creation of artist books and sculptures, as well as her work with artists, poets, students, and printmaking studios, such as Tamarind and Dieu Donne.

Lesley Dill is an American artist working at the intersection of language and fine art in sculpture, printmaking, installation and performance, exploring the power of words to cloak and reveal the psyche. Her artworks are in the collections of many major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Asheville Art Museum. In 2017 she was named a fellow of The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

“Paper is about fingertip energy for me. The way one moves in to touch paper is like no other approach. It’s as if each finger has a little imaginary rocketship in it. We touch nothing else the way we touch paper. Paper is the medium of intimacy. The end result is wonder. All printmaking begins with the choice of what paper and in this way, it is about a relationship to fragility and force. This relationship comes from Poetry.” —Lesley Dill.

Lesley Dill, "Unraveled Light (Yellow)," 2001, lithograph with collage and string on paper, 40 ¼ × 28 ¾ inches. Gift of Ray Griffin and Thom Robinson, Asheville Art Museum. by @lesleydill1

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13 days ago

Artist Book Collaboration Conversation
Wednesday, September 30 • 6 PM - 7 PM ET
A virtual event hosted by The Grolier Club and Dieu Donné

Presented in conjunction with Pioneers in Hand Papermaking: 50 Years of Innovation at Dieu Donné

Curator Cynthia Nourse Thompson will speak with artist Lesley Dill, poet Tom Sleigh, and printer Peter Kruty, who collaborated, along with master papermaker Paul Wong, at Dieu Donné to create the book, I Had a Blueprint of History, 2012. The conversation will highlight the themes of working together as an ensemble to translate the written word into image, and handmade paper’s relationship to print and book that is echoed throughout the entire exhibition.

Reserve a spot via link in bio

#lesleydill #grolierclub #dieudonné #artistbook #handpapermaking by @lesleydill1

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18 days ago

I’m happy to share an article in Vogue Portugal that includes my work.

Early in my career I went through a period of working with photography. I started thinking of people as being books in and of themselves. I found volunteers who were open to having Emily Dickinson poetry painted on them. They thus themselves became a poem.

“Leaping Woman” 1997, charcoal, thread, and photograph
Language from Emily Dickinson: "I cannot dance upon my Toes -- No Man instructed me -- But oftentimes, among my mind, A Glee possesseth me, That had I Ballet knowledge --Would put itself abroad In Pirouette to blanch a troupe -- Or lay a Prima, mad, And though I had no Gown of Gauze -- No Ringlet, to my Hair".

Find the full article translated to English in the link in bio. by @lesleydill1

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a month ago

I’m very honored to be interviewed by Itto and Mekiya Outini, who host Let's Have a Renaissance: The DateKeepers Podcast, a podcast about literature and the arts, where authors, editors, publishers, visual artists, performers, composers, filmmakers, and other creative professionals come together and discuss what it takes to build a sustainable career in the arts in the twenty-first century.

You can listen via the link in my bio or find the Datekeepers on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon.

#lesleydill #emilydickinson #poetry #nycartist #contemporaryart @troutmuseumofart @university.museums by @lesleydill1

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3 months ago

The Met Costume Institute Costume Art exhibit is now on view until January 2027. Here I am with my Poem Dress of Circulation, with words by Emily Dickinson.

I want to honor the incredible book, The Body Electric by Andrew Bolton, Nathalie Agussol, and Julie Wolfe, that the Metropolitan Museum of Art produced as a special edition in alignment with the Costume Art exhibition.

The book features assemblages by @juliewolfeartist, including the one seen here featuring Dress, autumn/winter 1998-99 by @oliviertheyskens, and my Poetic Body: Poem Dress of Circulation, 1992.

From the exhibition text: “Olivier Theyskens's dress translates the body's circulatory logic into a language of external ornamentation. Its "vascular" embroidery of blood-red thread and antique lace maps interiority while red lace and embroidered with red rendering hidden processes of circulation visible. Lesley Dill's 1992 The Poetic Body: Poem Dress of Circulation parallels this approach. While Theyskens employed thread to mimic veins, Dill proposed language as the subject's lifeblood. Her lines of circulation consist of layered paper fragments inscribed with a verse by Emily Dickinson: ‘The healed heart shows its shallow scar.’ Within this framework, the healed heart reflects on trauma's lasting bodily inscription, suggesting that the self emerges through linguistic and metaphorical currents rather than purely biological rhythms.”

#lesleydill #emilydickinson #poetry #nycartist #contemporaryart
@metmuseum @metcostumeinstitute @juliewolfeartist @oliviertheyskens @arthurrogergallery @emilydickinson.museum @printcenternewyork by @lesleydill1

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5 months ago

For me, an artwork is only an artwork when language is included in the making of the work. We as animals think and speak in words. We are animals of language. In 1993 I was living in New Delhi India with husband Ed Robbins. I had brought a roll of gampi paper and knew I wanted to make something with that. I didn’t really have a studio so I thought I would make little suits for people. Clothing, covering us and revealing or covering our identity, much as words do. When I’m looking for language for an art work. I am like a fox running after a rabbit. I made the suits in 1993, and now in 2026 the suits have been completed with their language. In this case, mostly Emily Dickinson.

Sleep is supposed to be - Emily Dickinson
Except the smaller size - Emily Dickinson
The Lightning was as new - Emily Dickinson
Snow flakes - Emily Dickinson
All I may - Emily Dickinson
There is a finished feeling - Emily Dickinson
Crisis is a Hair - Emily Dickinson
In the forest and the hill - Emily Dickinson
A slash of Blue - Emily Dickinson
Spring comes on the World - Emily Dickinson
Bloom - Emily Dickinson
There is a pain - Emily Dickinson
The Missing All - Emily Dickinson
Your Breath - Emily Dickinson
Split the Lark - Emily Dickinson
He stuns - Emily Dickinson
Clinching Interlocking Claws - Walt Whitman
I Stand Quietly - Franz Kafka

#lesleydill #emilydickinson #poetry #nycartist #contemporaryart by @lesleydill1

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6 months ago

This body of work is part of Wild Grace This Private Hallucinatory Moment, title inspired by poet Tom Sleigh. We as human beings in our relationship to language, we are not outside of it. We are in it, we are of it, we are suspended in language like a glass of water floating in the ocean.

This grouping of works, which are still on display at @arthurrogergallery in New Orleans, are particularly about how people wear and inhabit language. Language comes in many forms, delicate and almost invisible, rough and unraveled, or existing as music.

“He felt as if the way were opening before him to the unknown nourishment he craved” - Franz Kafka
“In Mee the Flame was Nevermore Alive” - John Donne
“How Ruthless are the Gentle” - Emily Dickinson
“You taught me patience with myself” - Emily Dickinson

#lesleydill #emilydickinson #installationart #sculpture #nycartist #artinneworleans #copperart #contemporaryart #poetry #sistergertrudemorgan #thankyousistermovie #folkart #selftaughtart by @lesleydill1

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8 months ago

I am so glad in this post to show everyone this alphabet of animals and people from Wild Grace This Private Hallucinatory Moment (title inspired by poet Tom Sleigh), hoping to represent some form of electrical dazzle in copper sewn upon Emily Dickinson poetry. Her poetry carries the world.

On view at @arthurrogergallery through February 13th.

#lesleydill #emilydickinson #installationart #sculpture #nycartist #artinneworleans #copperart #contemporaryart #poetry #sistergertrudemorgan #thankyousistermovie #folkart #selftaughtart by @lesleydill1

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9 months ago

These pieces are currently on view in my exhibition at Arthur Roger Gallery, "Wild Grace This Private Hallucinatory Moment", title inspired by poet Tom Sleigh.

I fell for Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980) when I saw an exhibition of her works at the Museum of American Folk Art in 2004 , curated by William Fagaly.
I felt that startle of recognition and inspiration – her obsession with language (my obsession as well!) Her visions – a strong strong woman of deep faith. In a Vision she received Word from God that she was to be the bride of Jesus and ever after to dress in white.
So what other artist/poet in American history dressed in white her entire adult life??
…
It is Emily Dickinson, she wore white most of her adult life in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Each image is made using copper backed with organza, wire, paint, and micron pen, and stenciled poetry on mulberry paper

1. Sister Gertrude Morgan Angel, 2025, 13” x 25.5”
Language: “We met as Sparks – Diverging Flints/Sent various – scattered ways…” - Emily Dickinson # 958
“Behind Me – dips Eternity…” - Emily Dickinson # 721

2. Small Sister Gertrude, 2025,11.5” x 5”
Language: “The Trusting Woods – The Unsuspecting Trees” - Emily Dickinson # 41

3. Maned Beast of Revelation SGM, 2025, 11”x12”
Language: “A transport one cannot contain/May yet a transport be…” - Emily Dickinson # 184

4. Beast of Revelation SGM, 2025, 15.5”x12.5 ”
Language: “Sister Gertrude Morgan”, “Beast of Revelation”, “Reach the light or in Hell”, “Now this paper is for the world”, “And see that”, “Read and look about yourself”, “And ask yourself have I got”, “Anything hid in the corner” -SGM

5. Long-Tailed Beast of Revelation SGM, 2025, 15”x18”
Language: “I never hear that one is dead/Without the chance of Life…” - Emily Dickinson # 1323

@arthurrogergallery
#lesleydill #emilydickinson #installationart #sculpture #nycartist #artinneworleans #copperart #contemporaryart #poetry #sistergertrudemorgan #thankyousistermovie #folkart #selftaughtart by @lesleydill1

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9 months ago

Now on view at Arthur Roger Gallery through 2/13/26
Lesley Dill: Wild Grace This Private Hallucinatory Moment

This clip is a 1-minute teaser from Lesley’s artist talk at the gallery.
For full video visit ArthurRogerGallery.com
Video by Ed Robbins @erobbins6

“Created during and after her Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, this exhibition brings together poetry, copper, and visionary figures charged with language and energy. Dill’s work draws deeply from Emily Dickinson and explores the space where art, science, and revelation meet.”
@arthurrogergallery

#lesleydill #emilydickinson #nycartist #artinneworleans #copperart #contemporaryart #poetry by @lesleydill1

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10 months ago

Everything is all Dickinson all the time underneath it all.
We used mulberry paper, pen and ink, and stencils of many fonts.
While making Wild Grace This Private Hallucinatory Moment, each person in the studio was invited to choose their own Dickinson poems or poetic phrases that they wanted to use behind their cut out copper image.
Every morning of our work day we began by passing around a book of Emily Dickinson poetry. One of us chose a page at random and then each of us read a line out loud.
In this way our day was launched by poetry.
And our day continued with choosing poetry, stenciling poetry, painting it in.
This was the rhythm and atmosphere of our work for many months and years really.

@arthurrogergallery
#lesleydill #emilydickinson #installationart #sculpture #nycartist #artinneworleans #copperart #contemporaryart #poetry by @lesleydill1

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10 months ago

How did we begin? How did we start making the work that would become titled “Wild Grace This Private Hallucinatory Moment”?
We began this project three-and-a-half years ago.
I knew I wanted to make a big, big artwork about the idea of radiance and grace. And using the entire 26 foot wall of my studio.
So we began.

@arthurrogergallery
#lesleydill #emilydickinson #nycartist #artinneworleans #copperart #contemporaryart #poetry by @lesleydill1

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10 months ago