Laddie John Dill

A key figure of the Light and Space movement since the 1960’s, Dill’s work brings together materials of dissimilar properties-glass, light and sand-evoking both earth and dematerialization. His Light Sentences rely on the properties of gases (argon, neon, helium, xenon and mercury) contained in glass tubes to emit chromatic light when electrically charged. With glowing segments aligned in rods, the Light Sentences’ present light in the form of written language.

Dill had his first solo exhibition in New York City when he was just 27 years old. He has received two National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowships, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and an Art in Public Buildings Program Grant from California Arts Council. Dill has exhibited in numerous exhibitions and is included in permanent collections of renowned institutions worldwide, including MOMA NY, LACMA, MoCA LA, and the Louisiana Museum, Denmark. He was included in The Getty’s Pacific Standard Time Berlin in 2012. Most recently, he completed a residency in Naples, Italy, where he did an installation in the cathedral Il Pio Monte della Misericordia di Napoli in response to seventeenth century Italian artist Caravaggio. Laddie John Dill has taught and lectured at universities and art institutions across the nation, and is now living and working in Venice, California.