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Words as Spiritual Armor: The Art of Lesley Dill

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Word Messengers (A Single Screw of Flesh is All That Pins the Soul), 2006, organza, ribbon, silk, glue


The current exhibit at The Columbia Museum of Art features the work of the contemporary American artist Lesley Dill.

The show, I Heard a Voice: The Art of Lesley Dill, consists of 34 pieces and is “the first retrospective exhibition of the artist of this scale.”
A Word Made Flesh…Throat, 1994, photolithograph, mixed intaglio, thread, with text by Emily Dickinson
From the press release:

Her pieces give visual form to poetic texts by Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu, Franz Kafka and others. For Dill, words are her ‘spiritual armor’ and she freely stitches and weaves them across the surfaces of her multi-layered works. “Language is the touchstone, the pivot point of all my work,” Dill said.

Dill’s spectacular new installations are quite a departure for the artist and are the highlights of the exhibition. With these dramatic pieces, Dill delves into an exploration of language and its integration with the human form.

 Word Queen of Laughter, 2007, foil, organza, wire, paint, steel

Here is Part 1 of a gallery tour of the exhibit when it was being shown at The Hunter Museum of American Art:


Part 2 is here


More multimedia featuring podcasts about the works in the exhibition and a documentary on Dill and her process, We are Animals of Language.

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