John Dill / Beautiful...

Beautiful…

Waves are crashing, sun is transforming and all of a sudden hundreds of black dots filled the sky. That was the moment my retina decided it was going to let loose. It was quite beautiful and poetic… the universe gave me a visual gift. – Bali, March 10, 2013

I was blessed to be taking photos at that exact moment. Later in my recovery, I had a moment where this project clicked and I started to dream it up. This series, Beautiful Dots, is my way of honoring this experience and sharing my optical journey.  It was a wild ride and changed the way I see life.  

Created in New York City, Fall/Winter 2013

John Artist Bio

John Dill, with his incomparable visual perspective, credits moving to the Caribbean at the age of 5 as the start of seeing the world differently than most. Not yet recognizing his artistic nature, John attended Bentley University for undergrad. An elective class during his pursuit of a BS in Marketing and Behavioral Sciences turned John on to graphic design which led him to further studies at Massachusetts College of Arts and a 20-year career using his unique perspective in a variety of creative fields.

After years of creating art for others through graphic design, DJing, and photography, John felt the desire to dive deeper into his untapped artistic well. So in January 2013, he put everything in storage and went on a soul search—ready for what the world had to show him. John was then gifted with the profound experience of witnessing the start of his left retina detach while on a beach in Bali—camera in hand—capturing a friend at sunset. Pouring vinegar into oil at an Italian restaurant gave John the aha moment to utilize this seemingly detrimental incident as inspiration to create a personal body of work. Thus Beautiful Dots was born.

Mixing lamp oil and Indian ink over top of the original Bali beach images, the aim was to recreate what he saw visually the moment his retina detached, which then spawned the question of what the inside of his eye looked like on a macro level and the subsequent exploration of the visual representation of such.

The first exhibition of Beautiful Dots occurred in December 2013 using nine projectors throughout three rooms, after which the next phase got placed on the back burner, and the project left incomplete. Fast forward to early 2019 when John’s other (right) retina detached, and his thoughts returned to this impactful moment. Not only inspired to create a new body of work based off of the right retina detachment visuals, John also reflected upon how lucky he is to have vision in both eyes and the calling to share his journey with others.

Beautiful Dots is the first step—a gateway—to further cultivate and refine his personalized style through other mixed media.

View more of his work at www.sliceofdill.com