Washington, D.C. – Lesley Dill: A Ten Year Survey, on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) from July 11 through September 14, 2003, will feature 35 visually compelling and thought-provoking mixed-media works, all created since 1993. They are the result of the artist’s encounter with Emily Dickinson’s poetry, which transformed Dill’s work.

Language, specifically poetry, fuels these complex investigations of how we relate to our bodies, our spirituality, and the world. Dill explores the transcendent power of the written word, the fragility and strength of the human spirit, and the relationship between body and soul.

When Dill (b. 1950) received a volume of Dickinson’s poetry for her 40th birthday, the change in her work was dramatic. She added multiple layers of meaning by incorporating Dickinson’s poetry and text by Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Pablo Neruda, and others. The resulting pieces are rich in texture, using mostly natural materials such as charcoal, horsehair, and tea, and range in size from books to public billboards.

A major focus for Dill is the relationship between language, clothing, and the body. Her best-known series features dresses in the shape Dickinson would have worn. Poem Dress of Circulation (1994) from this series is made of paper on which lines from Dickinson’s poem 928, “The Heart has narrow Banks,” are printed. Words from the poem that suggest threat emanate from a heart on the upper left portion of the dress. Addressing the fragility of life and its inherent fluency, the words and lines on the dress mimic the movement of a river from its source, or blood moving through the body.

Word Through (1999) is a headless, suited androgynous figure made of aluminum and painted entirely white. Two lines by Franz Kafka are repeatedly stamped on scrolls that are woven through the figure and pool onto the ground: “I am a hesitation before birth/My life is a hesitation before birth.” The spoken word becomes tangible, as the accumulations of paper make reference to the consequences of speech.

Another major component of Dill’s work is her modified black-and-white photographs, which she alters by soaking, scraping away layers of emulsion, and adding texture with oil paint, charcoal, and other materials. A Thought Went Up My Mind Today (1996) features a nude woman, standing with her back to the viewer. Quotes from Dickinson’s poem 701 that describe the slow formation of insights over time are written along the woman’s spine, suggesting that we think with more than our heads.

For Dill, eyes are not only windows to the soul; they can also be paths of spiritual communication. The large-scale fabric hanging Poem Eyes (1995) bears a photographic image of a woman’s face with two long strands of tea-stained muslin flowing from her closed eyes to the ground. Her forehead is inscribed with the first two lines from Dickinson’s poem 758: “These–saw Visions–/Latch them softly–,” addressing the difference between physical sight and spiritual vision.

NMWA Director Judy L. Larson comments, “Lesley Dill’s thought-provoking and challenging explorations are certain to stimulate our museum visitors’ imaginations. Her work expands the way we think about the world.”

The exhibition is organized by the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz. The National Museum of Women in the Arts thanks the Lois Lehrman Grass Foundation for its generous support of this exhibition. Coordinating curator is Britta Konau, NMWA associate curator of modern and contemporary art. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue featuring essays by Susan Krane, Arlene Raven, and Janet Koplos, senior editor of Art in America, available for $22.95 through the museum shop or on the museum’s website at www.nmwa.org. Admission to the museum during the time of Lesley Dill: A Ten Year Survey will be $5 for adults, $3 for students and people age 60 and over, and free for NMWA members and youth under 18.

Programs associated with the exhibition include a lecture by the artist on July 11, a concert inspired by Dickinson poems on July 18, and a screening of the film Loaded Gun: Life, and Death, and Dickinson, on August 3. For times, prices, and further information call 202.783.7370 or visit www.nmwa.org/calendar.

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