Joseph Dilnot

Joseph Dilnot (b.1997) is a self taught artist who works predominantly in oil paint through which he creates a personal mythology with its own symbolism. His lyrical paintings explore imagined worlds where momentary insights and reflections on personal experiences are condensed into often enigmatic scenarios overlayed with gentle humour.

Growing up living between the English Channel and the South Downs National Park, Dilnot draws great inspiration from the natural world. Elements of this are blended with references to history, myth and personal memories. Dilnot depicts landscapes, often inhabited by journeying, solitary figures placed into unremembered pasts. Lost in unnerving landscapes, they pursue answers to unknown questions, suggesting allegories for the contemporary condition. Dilnot's paintings explore grief but firmly hold on to a sense of wonder, hope and lightness.

His works have been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Hastings Contemporary, Atelier Gallery, The Lido Stores, Glyndebourne Opera House and Weald Contemporary.

Mepaintsme: Thanks for meeting with me. Although I’ve been exhibiting your work for over a year I actually don’t know a lot about you! Where are you originally from?

Joseph Dilnot: I was born and lived in Brighton, Sussex for 18 years and now live just down the coast, still in Sussex.

MPM: To me, I feel a sense of place in your work. Do you feel like growing up there has influenced your work?

JD: It’s had a huge impact on me, having the coast on one side and a National park on the other has fueled my imagination since I was a child. I think a good portion of my paintings are set in a fantasy version of Sussex. I draw a lot from its history and my imaginings of what it would have looked and felt like in the past. My mum’s side of the family are Spanish and my time spent there visiting them left a significant impression on me also. There is a big castle near where they lived that I enjoyed pretending to either siege or defend as a child.

MPM: So it also sounds like storytelling has always informed your creative inner world, and I see that in your work, but I wouldn't call your paintings narrative, in the literal sense. To me they read more like fables that we, the viewers, are invited to decipher. How do you see them?

JD: I think that is a great way to put it. They are like fables, tales and sagas that have been passed down over time whilst being tweaked and adapted. They tell of unexplainable events as well as moments just before or after the main event has occurred. Figures walk in and out of the landscape, they are exiles, hermits, adventurers and ghosts.

MPM: They also seem to exist in a very fantastical space where various types of phenomena occur.  Strange creatures appear from nowhere, the landscape takes on human form etc. It's almost like there's a magical presence outside the paintings, but one grounded in, or even spawning from nature. Is the magical something you aim to capture or convey?

JD: You have hit the nail on the head really. The magical, the unexplainable, the uncanny and the strange play an important role. I like giving these properties to objects such as ladders, candles, shoes and hats. These could be portals, once climbed, lit or worn enabling you to talk to the dead, be imparted knowledge or take you to a landscape unknown. Although their purpose and meanings do change from painting to painting. Nature is already more bizarre than anything fantastical and it’s impossible to run out of things to be inspired by. Those living landscapes are some of the favourite things to paint at the moment. I do like to sometimes think that I am a painter in these worlds, traveling around with my easel and paints trying to capture these tales and phenomena first hand.

MPM: When you do see human forms they often appear to take the form of knights, jesters or lone travelers. Are fantasy and folklore influences?

JD: It’s all a big blend of history, fantasy and folklore influence combined with my own personal experience and memories, I tend to call it a personal mythology or folklore. I try to take in a lot of information and then as I slowly forget and misremember it they merge together along with my own thoughts to become something else. My paintings could maybe come across as purely fantastical at times but I think the coming together of history, folklore and memory is very human and relevant. All these tales and experiences still ring true today and a vast majority of our desires and fears remain the same. I think these inherent emotions and archetypes are what make up the foundation of a lot of my paintings.

The lone travelers are much more of a memory than anything else. Some reflect my own wandering through the South Downs here in Sussex along with my thoughts on what has occurred in this landscape over time. But I think a lot has to come down to a trip I went on in Spain. Whilst there I went to visit the resting place of a distant relative who is buried somewhere in the cathedral in Toledo. Long story short, I got unbelievably lost in the maze of streets without a phone or sense of direction in the searing heat. I spent hours wandering the streets, it is a very old town (the one El Greco mostly painted) and over time as my worry subsided, I truly started to see myself as some citizen of old pursuing a quest, I was clearly very dehydrated.

MPM: I see some other literary influence, perhaps... Are you a fan of J.R.R. Tolkein?

JD: You got me! I do very much like Tolkien. My mum read me the Hobbit when I was little and it must have sprung from that. His immense dedication to world building is hard to not be inspired by. I used to look at the illustrations for his work by Alan Lee and John Howe for hours when I was younger, they really captured the writing, and Tolkien was a great painter himself. I struggled to get into reading until recently as I have to reread a page 3 or 4 times for it to sink in. I listen to audio books now and I usually have one on while I’m painting.

MPM: You typically work very small. Is this a practical choice? 

JD: It is and it isn’t. I had a couple of projects last year that required me to work smaller and on paper. I have worked larger in the past but I do particularly love working smaller. There is nowhere to hide when you work small, every piece of the idea and execution can be scrutinised in detail and I really like that. Working on that scale helps me get a lot of ideas out and build up a collection to then use and generate more. They can sometimes take on an intense, votive nature as well and a lot of my favorite artists worked smaller with large impacts, Remedios Varo comes to mind. I think there is a certain magic that can sometimes get lost on a larger scale.

MPM: The brushwork and looseness in these small works make me wonder, what would happen if these were larger?  Have you considered working larger again? 

JD: I have actually started making larger work recently. I thought the most logical thing would be to do the exact same process but with larger brushes. This didn’t go well at all, so I have found myself using the exact same process and brushes but on a larger plane. Although, I am using new techniques that come with working larger and looser. I don’t use anything larger than a size 2 brush so they are taking a while, the first lot should start creeping about online in the late summer/ autumn. They will still be small to most people’s standards, sub 50cm/20inches but they feel like making an Anselm Kiefer to me!

I think the first very large piece I will make is a map. Not to make everything make sense or to put everything in a specific place, more to add to the confusion. It would be like an old illustrated map but all the proportions and locations are incorrect. Pieces missing or torn off it, notes pasted over the top. It would be a discovered relic from the place my paintings take place. It is something I have wanted to do for many years now and I think I am almost ready to tackle it, along with making other objects and relics.

MPM: From your photographs it feels like your studio is immersed in nature!

JD: My studio is a shed at the bottom of a garden, next to my dad's. He is an artist, John Dilnot, along with my mum who makes pottery, Belen Gomez. I work best being away from any bustle, although the perpetual suburban lawn mower is always present. The studio is next to a pond and I like seeing all the creatures that live and visit, going about their lives, it centers me.

MPM: Do you have any upcoming projects that you'd like to share with us?

JD: I have a duo show alongside fellow mepaintsme featured artist, David Surman, with Weald Contemporary in Brighton this September. I’m greatly looking forward to showing alongside David and in my hometown for the first time. I will also have work shown in a group show at Glyndebourne Opera House as a part of their Autumn program. I was included last year and I’m delighted to have been invited again. It is such a special place and experience. I will also be working on that map!

VIEW ARTWORKS BY JOSEPH DILNOT