John Dillemuth
Moveable Sculptures & Paintings
Curated by Lydia Takeshita and Vallo Riberto
Solo Exhibit
November 1-24th, 2019
Curated by Lydia Takeshita and Vallo Riberto
LA Artcore Brewery Annex
650A South Avenue 21
Los Angeles, CA 90031
Gallery Hours: 12-4 p.m., Th-Sun
LA Artcore is pleased to present a solo exhibit by San Diego-based artist John Dillemuth, whose thought-process manifests across sculpture and painting, arriving at nearly divergent aesthetic spheres of influence within each chosen medium.
Dillemuth's kinetic sculptures access the unique histories of early industrial revolutions and envision an anthropomorphized union between the body and objects of industry. Dillemuth States, “I manipulate connotations inherent in materials objects and processes.” The whittling of wood often considered a crude craft and associated with folk or outsider art lends itself to a ready-made boyish narrative. “My installations offer a full range of sensual experience; the sound of running water, the chatter of gears turning, music playing, the smell of hay, and interactive play through simple mechanical movement.
The fabrics and other domestic materials employed, entail memory and are associated with the body. Generally, they are cloths worn close to the body, or towels used to dry wash and dry the body. Within the installation, they may function as decoration, as eastic and/or see-through skins or coverings, as puppetry, or as abstract compositions.
Dillemuth's paintings, full of character in their off-kilter geometries, flattened perspectives, and representations of an encapsulated world of daily rural life. Rife with people and landscapes, the paintings stand in stark contrast to the urban landscape and unfold curiosity and fascination at the work's steadily objective gaze. “The domestic imagery in my paintings lend comic texture. Similar in my approach to my 3-d works, they come with ready-made stories mediated through a homespun style of painting.
Play is the thread that ties all of the elements together. The spindly quality of workmanship gives Dillemuth’s work a whimsical and cartoonish quality, and the moving parts add to the theater. The large-scale “toys” and contraptions act up and work hard to perform simple functions. Dillemuth reflects, “It is my aim in art to mix the fantastic with the ordinary, the crude with the sophisticated, the absurd with the puritanical, and the visionary with the comic.
John Dillemuth was born in 1956 and grew up in a large family in Pocahontas, Iowa. “My parents were both hard workers. There was always food on the table but nothing for frivolities. When the church bells rang on Sunday morning, all of the Dillemuth kids were seated with their shirts and blouses ironed. While rural Iowa offered wide horizons and room to roam, there was less to experience on the cultural front. A thirty-foot sculpture of Pocahontas was the only art in miles. Just as in much of rural America, culture was what was playing on T.V. I grew up on Leave it to Beaver, Batman, and Bonanza. It wasn't until high school that I discovered through literature that there was more to life than what meets the eye. About the same time I became interested in art. I went to college at the University of Iowa for two years, and then moved to New York City and finished my B.A. in art at Hunter College in 1982. I received my M.F.A. in art from the University at Buffalo, (Suny) in 2001. Although I have tried my hand at writing poetry, my talent and energy lies in art. I can't help doing it. I have exhibited my art in New York, California, and Mexico. For most of the last twenty years I have lived in San Diego. California is my home. "