Lesley Dill’s “Wildnerness: Light Sizzles Around Me” art exhibition opened Tuesday, March 14 at Kennesaw State’s Zuckerman Museum of Art and tells the story of several historical figures and fictional characters through Dill’s eyes.
The exhibit, which remains open until May 13, features painted banners, detailed textiles and small cloth sculptures.
Connectedness to the past and different meanings of wilderness are key themes throughout the exhibit. A unique style of typography featuring letters in different fonts and colors creates both chaos within and connection between the different pieces in the collection.
Clothing ensembles suspended from the ceiling, used to represent the different historical figures, meld Dill’s dynamic lettering with loose intertwined threads to further create a sense of wilderness. The threads are both a source of the disorder and the mechanism used to connect elements together, which serves as a symbol for the overarching themes of the exhibit.
Meanwhile, exclamation points and arrows throughout the banners provide frenetic guidance for the viewer’s eye. Each banner features “texts by or about each figure revealing the essence of their characters,” according to the exhibit signage. For example, a banner honoring Sojourner Truth includes quotes from her well-known “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech.
KSU student Candice Cortez shared that she felt a sense of female empowerment while observing the pieces inspired by Truth.
“It kind of spoke to me, like she’s making art back then, and it wasn’t really a female thing,” Cortez said.
Other people featured in the exhibit include historical figures Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Horace Pippin, John Brown and Dred Scott. A single fictional character, Hester Prynne from “The Scarlet Letter,” is included as well.
Each segment of the exhibit dedicated to a different person features a note from Dill about the person’s history or why she included them in the exhibition. According to the exhibit signage, Dill “made a conscious effort to identify a diverse set of voices whose experiences provide us with a more complete portrait of our history.”
Dill has established a prolific career in the arts, with her previous works being featured in museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, according to her biography on her website. She also received recognition for her opera called “Divide Light” inspired by Emily Dickinson’s work, Dill’s biography said.
Dill will lecture at the ZMA Spring 2023 After Hours event on April 14. More information, including a registration link, can be found in the ZMA events schedule.
The ZMA regularly offers a variety of events, programs, exhibitions and collections. More details can be found on the museum’s website.
