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Portfolios%3D%222350%22%20and%20Disp_Obj_Type%3D%22Mixed%20Media%22
Mixed Media
Homage to F.K. #2
Lesley Dill, (Bronxville NY, 1950 - )
Dill, Lesley
United States
1950
Female
42 7/16 x 32 7/16 in. (107.8 x 82.4 cm)
.
.
.
with frame
Ink
Ink
2004
2004
2004
Mixed Media
In Homage to F.K.#2, Lesley Dill was inspired by two creative and enigmatic artists: Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) and American poet Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886). With cloth and thread, Dill recreated Kahlo’s bitter self-portrait in which Kahlo depicted herself after cutting off her hair in anger to punish her unfaithful husband, Diego Rivera. On layers of tea-stained linen, Dill applied lines from a 19th century poem by Emily Dickinson, whose words hit the artist “emotionally, like a thunderbolt” upon first reading the book of poetry she received on her birthday from her mother:
You cannot put a Fire out --
A Thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a Fan --
Upon the slowest Night --
You cannot fold a Flood --
And put it in a Drawer --
Because the Winds would find it out --
And tell your Cedar Floor –
While Kahlo and Dickinson were women who were clearly passionate about their art, Homage is layered with ambiguities. The flowing threads suggest hair as well as fire and water; the delicate feminine stitchery delineates a woman known to have been bisexual, whose self-portrait is decidedly masculine.
[Gallery label text, 2004]
removed from backing
2004.2
item
Memorial Art Gallery
3/26/2004
2004.2DI1
digital image
00/00/00
http://127.0.0.1:5000/Media/images/2004.2_A1.jpg
2004.2DI#2
digital image
6/23/2020
http://127.0.0.1:5000/Media/images/2004.2_A2.jpg