Laddie John Dill & Mineo Mizuno

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Laddie John Dill & Mineo Mizuno
Nature's Analogy
1993

Project Area: CBD/Financial Core
Project: Central Library, Maguire Gardens
Project Location: Fifth Street and Figueroa
Project Type: Developer

Description:

John Dill and Mineo Mizuno’s fountain consists of porcelain geometrical forms gathered together in a small, circular fountain. The floor and walls of the basin are composed of volcanic rock, minerals, and earth sealed in glass. According to Dill, "The obvious employment of cement, glass, and ceramic is meshed with pigments of ground minerals and oxides that existed in the area before the architecture that surrounds it. The attempt is to combine the ephemeral qualities of these natural oxides in an expressionistic manner and have them interact with the architectural structure that defines them physically.”

Artist Profiles

Los Angeles native Laddie John Dill attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles where he received his BFA in 1968. Taking a position as an apprentice printer in West Hollywood after graduation, the artist had the opportunity to work closely with such established artists as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Claus Oldenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein, which inspired him to experiment with non-traditional materials. This experience in addition to Dill's talent and ingenuity have all combined to make him a nationally and internationally recognized contemporary artist. Dill’s sculptures have been collected by several museums including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena; San Diego Museum of Art; Greenville County Museum of Art; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, São Paolo, Brazil; and the Louisiana Museum, Denmark. The artist currently lives and works in Venice, California.
Born in Gifu Prefecture, Japan in 1944, Mineo Mizuno formally trained at California Institute of Arts, Chouinard Art School. He was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts 1981 Craftsman's Fellowship. Works by the artist are in the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Los Angeles Central Library Maguire Gardens; Marer Collection Scripps College, Claremont; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan; and the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Japan.