Laddie John Dill’s early installation work has recently been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and was included in the much heralded 2010 exhibition Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960-1970 at David Zwirner, New York.
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Dill was born in Long Beach and attended Santa Monica High School. He graduated from Chouinard Art Institute in 1968. By the time Dill was 28, he was offered his first one-man exhibition at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York.
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After graduation from Chouinard, Dill recalled, “I needed a job but I wanted to work where I could further my education as well.” As an apprentice printer at Gemini G.E.L., located in West Hollywood, Dill had the opportunity to work closely with established artists including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Claus Oldenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein.
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Dialog between artists of the 1970s resulted in experiments with materials previously not considered traditional art media, such as neon, sticks, wax, cement, and the relationship of those materials to each other. “It was a good healthy time for experimentation,” Dill explained. “I was influenced by 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.”
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Dill began experimenting first with neon and argon tubing, arranging the delicate, gas-filled, glass tubes into wall pieces. “I soon became interested in throwing the light against irregular surfaces such as brick walls, etc.”
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Laddie John DillUntitled, 1971Sand, argon light, and plate glassLaguna Art Museum CollectionGift of the artist

Dill moved on to working three-dimensionally and filled a room in his studio with 10,000 pounds of silica sand. It was there that he mixed light and sand to create pieces which were more like painting than sculpture. “It was very much like doing a painting, except that it was on the floor, and I used shovels and brooms instead of a brush.”
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Laddie John DillUntitled, 1972Mixed media on boardLaguna Art Museum CollectionGift of Ruth and Murray Gribin

During the 1970s Dill also began experimenting with wall pieces using cement in contrast with the smooth surface of glass. Using natural pigments he incorporates in his work a wide range of colors—brick reds derived from iron oxide, coal blacks from black sulphur, yellows, and naturally mined cobalt blues. Combinations of these natural pigments create a variety of brilliant but still “organic” colors.
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Extract: Developing Exhibitions from the Collection is on display at Laguna Art Museum through May 15, 2011. Click here for visitor information. Enjoy a presentation by Laddie John Dill, along with fellow Extract artist Chris Wilder, at Laguna Art Museum on April 10, 2011. Click here for more information.
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Extract consists of several small, one-person shows from the museum’s California-focused Permanent Collection by Florence Arnold, Elanor Colburn, George Brandriff, Laddie John Dill, Jules Engel, Oskar Fischinger, Tom Holland, Peter Krasnow, Ruth Peabody, David Simpson, Vic Joachim Smith, Jean St. Pierre, and Chris Wilder. The exhibition includes brief curatorial statements on the importance of each artist’s work, and aims to assess the potential for fully-formed monographic exhibitions.