Press
Laddie John Dill
By Jon Meyer
Arts Magazine, January 1984
In Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice Gustave Aschenbach, the central figure, proclaimed, “For not to be able to want sobriety is licentious folly.” Aschenbach, after all, was a somber literary artist, having emerged from obscurity by writing a ‘lucid and vigorous prose epic’ on the life of Fredrick the Great.
Laddie John Dill, in contrast, paints with light. Although he no longer uses glass tubes and neon to paint dots and dashes or bars of brightly articulated color, prismatic light shines from his work nonetheless. In his latest show, Dill’s canvases are studies for stage sets for the theatrical version of Death in Venice. These cogent scenographic abstractions employ large triangles and forced perspective trapezoids to lead the viewer into an illusion of stage volume. The projected orthographics of the artist’s imagery is enhanced by high contrast at the form of boundaries. The overall effects refer to Turner’s sky, fire and water seascapes, particularly the ones set, appropriately, in Venice. The theatergoer or gallery viewer could easily imagine a silent gondola carrying Aschenbach through narrow canals.
Deep royals flowing into lay aquamarines, supplanted by vibrant alizarins and cadmium, elicit a mood of expectation. Would the protagonist survive? Gustave’s resistance was wearing down, ”…and art was war-a grilling, exhausting struggle that nowadays wore one out before one could grow old. It had been a life of self-conquest, a life against odds, dour, steadfast, abstinent; he had made it symbolical of the kind of overstrained heroism the time admired. “Aschenbach’s time in Germany produced the Expressionist art heroes. Dill’s attribute to the German artists of that period, especially Kokoschka, Heckel, and Marc, although his compositions are much more rectilinear. It is Abstract Expressionism turned end over end, that is, Expressionist Abstraction. Converging forces, equal and opposite, are obtained by the artist’s use of sections, painted separately and applied as marquetry to the canvas. Reticulated sand and foam images recall Dill’s lyrical cement and polymer work of the mid to late 70’s.
Although he still employs some polymer and cement pigment mix applied to canvas, Dill uses abstract color and form to project dimensionality, whereas some years back, he built his highly textural landscapes by casting a solid area and carving back to reveal topography through a reductive process. In his minimalist days, Dill explored light and volume in a way related to Larry Bell and Robert Irwin. Although his sand and neon and his sand and glass pieces were theoretically three-dimensional environments, the issues revealed were more aligned with painting than with sculpture. Those environments emanated from the floor plane and evolved to emerge from the wall. Now , in another end over end, Dill’s two-dimensional paintings serve as flat maquettes for three-dimensional theater in the round. Stage right and stage left are counterbalanced in many of these works. Although the ‘flats’ themselves are the focus of attention, interstitial triangles help the sense of interior space and mood.
Inside the geometric shapes, curvilinear movement takes place. Fire leaps toward an edge, channeled water circulates, while blue sky and thin wisps of clouds float. Color as form is carefully directed-urged but not forced or pressed. Shadows appear in places, adding to the contrast. In other places brightly hued spotlights play down and in, bouncing and reflecting. The mark seems to be laid down easily, but also with intensity. There is nothing lazy about his work.
Although most of Dill’s work in the show exhibits adroit use of bold primary colors, there are some pieces that contain more subdued grays or copper red-browns. The play, after all, is not just a bright and shining presence. Some scenes are contemplative and a few even melancholy. But hey should convey a rhythm and balance not unlike the gondola boatman, gliding his ship home. The paintings also contain curtains from which the players can emerge or retreat to. These curtains serve as veils, separating the world of the visible from that of the mental or subtle.
Mann’s description from Death in Venice is apt: “At the world’s edge began a strewing of roses, a shining and a blooming ineffably pure; baby cloudlets hung illuminated, like attendant amoretti, in the blue and blushful haze; purple effulgence fell upon the sea, that seemed to heave it forward on its welling waves; from horizon to zenith went great quivering thrusts like golden lances, the gleam became a glare; without a sound, with godlike violence, glow and glare and rolling flames streamed upwards, and with flying hoof-beats the steeds of the sun-god and mounted the sky.”
The stage is strongly set. The backdrops will get the curtain calls. What can the players do now? (Charles Cowles, November 5-26)
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Laddie John Dill
By Jon Meyer
Arts Magazine, January 1984
In Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice Gustave Aschenbach, the central figure, proclaimed, “For not to be able to want sobriety is licentious folly.” Aschenbach, after all, was a somber literary artist, having emerged from obscurity by writing a ‘lucid and vigorous prose epic’ on the life of Fredrick the Great.
Laddie John Dill, in contrast, paints with light. Although he no longer uses glass tubes and neon to paint dots and dashes or bars of brightly articulated color, prismatic light shines from his work nonetheless. In his latest show, Dill’s canvases are studies for stage sets for the theatrical version of Death in Venice. These cogent scenographic abstractions employ large triangles and forced perspective trapezoids to lead the viewer into an illusion of stage volume. The projected orthographics of the artist’s imagery is enhanced by high contrast at the form of boundaries. The overall effects refer to Turner’s sky, fire and water seascapes, particularly the ones set, appropriately, in Venice. The theatergoer or gallery viewer could easily imagine a silent gondola carrying Aschenbach through narrow canals.
Deep royals flowing into lay aquamarines, supplanted by vibrant alizarins and cadmium, elicit a mood of expectation. Would the protagonist survive? Gustave’s resistance was wearing down, ”…and art was war-a grilling, exhausting struggle that nowadays wore one out before one could grow old. It had been a life of self-conquest, a life against odds, dour, steadfast, abstinent; he had made it symbolical of the kind of overstrained heroism the time admired. “Aschenbach’s time in Germany produced the Expressionist art heroes. Dill’s attribute to the German artists of that period, especially Kokoschka, Heckel, and Marc, although his compositions are much more rectilinear. It is Abstract Expressionism turned end over end, that is, Expressionist Abstraction. Converging forces, equal and opposite, are obtained by the artist’s use of sections, painted separately and applied as marquetry to the canvas. Reticulated sand and foam images recall Dill’s lyrical cement and polymer work of the mid to late 70’s.
Although he still employs some polymer and cement pigment mix applied to canvas, Dill uses abstract color and form to project dimensionality, whereas some years back, he built his highly textural landscapes by casting a solid area and carving back to reveal topography through a reductive process. In his minimalist days, Dill explored light and volume in a way related to Larry Bell and Robert Irwin. Although his sand and neon and his sand and glass pieces were theoretically three-dimensional environments, the issues revealed were more aligned with painting than with sculpture. Those environments emanated from the floor plane and evolved to emerge from the wall. Now , in another end over end, Dill’s two-dimensional paintings serve as flat maquettes for three-dimensional theater in the round. Stage right and stage left are counterbalanced in many of these works. Although the ‘flats’ themselves are the focus of attention, interstitial triangles help the sense of interior space and mood.
Inside the geometric shapes, curvilinear movement takes place. Fire leaps toward an edge, channeled water circulates, while blue sky and thin wisps of clouds float. Color as form is carefully directed-urged but not forced or pressed. Shadows appear in places, adding to the contrast. In other places brightly hued spotlights play down and in, bouncing and reflecting. The mark seems to be laid down easily, but also with intensity. There is nothing lazy about his work.
Although most of Dill’s work in the show exhibits adroit use of bold primary colors, there are some pieces that contain more subdued grays or copper red-browns. The play, after all, is not just a bright and shining presence. Some scenes are contemplative and a few even melancholy. But hey should convey a rhythm and balance not unlike the gondola boatman, gliding his ship home. The paintings also contain curtains from which the players can emerge or retreat to. These curtains serve as veils, separating the world of the visible from that of the mental or subtle.
Mann’s description from Death in Venice is apt: “At the world’s edge began a strewing of roses, a shining and a blooming ineffably pure; baby cloudlets hung illuminated, like attendant amoretti, in the blue and blushful haze; purple effulgence fell upon the sea, that seemed to heave it forward on its welling waves; from horizon to zenith went great quivering thrusts like golden lances, the gleam became a glare; without a sound, with godlike violence, glow and glare and rolling flames streamed upwards, and with flying hoof-beats the steeds of the sun-god and mounted the sky.”
The stage is strongly set. The backdrops will get the curtain calls. What can the players do now? (Charles Cowles, November 5-26)
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