Joseph Dilnot: Sound of the Past
9 February - 12 April 2026
  • Overview

    Overview

    A lot of the worldbuilding in my favourite stories is told through strange characters or events you witness that imply a deeper history or meaning without a laboured explanation.

    Working in oil on paper, canvas, and linen, Joseph Dilnot’s works combine a luminous painting technique with dreamlike magic realist imagery, presenting scenes from a world of uncanny mystery set in the woodlands and rolling hills of Dilnot’s native county of Sussex, UK - or rather, in a phantasmal somewhere-else formed from memories of that place.  Inspired by historical illuminated manuscripts and relatively sparse available records of Anglo-Saxon Britain, Dilnot’s paintings depict journeying figures, wanderers and visions of a landscape busy with life, where humans and hybrid beings coexist with entities reaching down from the clouds. 

    Each picture renders a moment or facet of a single consistent pictorial universe, extending seamlessly across small paintings on paper in this exhibition (10cm - 25cm) into larger works on linen (up to 200cm). Open-ended in their narrative content, Dilnot’s images invite the viewer to creatively interpret what is presented in individual paintings, and in the network of connections between his works as a whole. Some images call for unusually shaped supports, leading Dilnot to diverge from the traditional rectangle into formats reminiscent of fresco paintings from the past, which were originally composed to decorate irregularly shaped interior walls. Finding pleasure in the strange and unexplainable, Dilnot takes details drawn from his historical researches and weaves them into personal mythologies rich with symbolism, combining imagination, invention, and a gentle humour inspired by the paintings of Pieter Brueghel and Hieronymus Bosch. 

    Works available framed from £500+
  • Paintings

  • Artist Exhibition Statement

    The majority of these paintings were made in the late summer of last year. The presence of my historical interests and research are slowly developing and combining with my already established motifs, creatures and scenes. Some include direct historical reference such as ‘Irminsul’ which translates to ‘Great Pillar’, usually a sacred tree or stone which were venerated by the Germanic Pagans. They represented many things, some of which are included in these paintings, although what they symbolised and what their uses were are somewhat a mystery in themselves. Not every painting includes this mix, lacking a symbolic anchor within the image like ‘Irminsul’. Instead they possess an atmosphere inspired by these findings. 

    The connections in my works, clear or concealed, feature recurring figures, archetypes and concerns, inhabiting an indefinite narrative. My aim is that each painting can contain its own independent mood, themes and pictorial language while still contributing to a slowly developing, larger world. Each painting reacts to the works that have come before it, creating a living history without fixed limits and explicit explanation. Rarely are references utilised literally, they are used to help dress a scene and provide a starting context for myself and the viewer while still allowing plenty of space for interpretation.  

    When making these works I was particularly drawn to Anglo-Saxon poems. They were passed down orally over potentially hundreds of years, author(s) unknown. Their tellers transitioned from Pagan to early Christianity during this time and each narrator would have modified the works to suit their own times and beliefs, eventually leaving us with what was recorded in manuscripts that have survived into present day such as ‘The Exeter Book’. The evolution of these tales over time, their translation from Old English, the condition of the surviving manuscripts and the non-extensive records of the period create mysteries and space for those interested to interpret and implant their own meanings. I aim for my creative process and method of storytelling to be similar. Non-linear, incomplete and amorphous.  
     
    The poems are visually rich, sometimes surprisingly dour and doom filled. The protagonists feel lost, alienated and ruminate on violent and damaged pasts. I believe a lot of the sentiments found in these works could easily be applied to our modern times, literally and metaphorically. There is also a sense of humanity's frailty compared to nature in some of these poems. Descriptions of the landscape, sea and weather can make the protagonists seem very small and this imagery is reflected in my paintings. Very rarely will a figure be the main event. 

    I like to look back through time, finding stories, objects, places and people that inspire me as well as the everlasting themes, archetypes and conditions that were a part of our humanity then and remain today. These are mixed and embellished with creatures, strange phenomena, personal experience and humour which form a slowly expanding place, parallel and mirroring our own.

  • Essay by Dan Lippiatt

    A land of strangers far away

    That quotation comes from ‘The Exeter Book’, an anthology of poetry made in the 10th century, though the poems themselves could be much older. Dilnot cites it as influential reading matter during the making of these paintings. The notion of “a land of strangers far away” resonates with a statement made by Dilnot in 2024, in regard to his painting practice as an ongoing project: 

    “I am slowly building a world in my paintings and I prefer worldbuilding by suggestion, which can allow the viewer to put together narratives themselves.”

    Viewing these recent paintings, what narratives might we put together? Environments and motifs recur in various permutations, inviting us to read the paintings in relation to one another. Some paintings spark obvious connections, while others carry equally striking echoes of the historical material that Dilnot researches to fire his imagination - not least in titles drawn from an antique vocabulary of ‘wyrms’, ‘barrows’ and ‘Irminsuls’. 

    Dilnot’s open-ended art of suggestion doesn’t press us to deduce a final definitive reading, but rather to continue the imaginative approach that he brought to bear on the making of the paintings. What follows is a reflection on just a few of the recurring motifs found in these particular pictures, and what they contribute to the world that Dilnot continues to build, one painting at a time.

    The earth’s surfaces and the sky above
     
    Dilnot doesn’t typically paint landscapes without some form of figurative element occupying the space. However, the role played by these spaces is rarely - if ever - that of a passive pictorial ‘background’. Rather, the environments are frequently granted a sense of liveliness equal to their inhabitants, indicating that they are as much characters in these narratives as the people and creatures living in and amongst them.

    This is true of the extraordinarily fecund forests and shrublands that feature in two-thirds of the paintings making up this exhibition. It also applies to the coastal ground depicted in one of the exhibition’s outliers, Rockpools, in which every inch is teeming with various forms of marine life. Inland, abundant vegetation often crowds everything else out of view, and in the paintings where open sky can be seen, we find that even the clouds are rarely simply passing through. More often they too are involved in proceedings, as conduits for the arms of god(s) (Reclaimed Tree), or as beings in themselves (Wyrm Shaped Cloud).

    Dilnot’s skies also host one of the most striking recurring motifs found in this group of works: an uprooted horizontal levitating tree.
     

    Among the celestial hosts

     

    In some of these pictures, a tree is simply a tree, or so it seems. For example, in Grub Beneath a Tree and Tree Shepherd the titular plants are vertically oriented and rooted in the ground where we’d expect them to be. This is not so, however, in Omen, where said portent is signalled by the appearance of an uprooted tree in full leaf, suspended in the air high above a canopy of darker foliage. What could it mean? Is there a connection between the levitating heads and Its leaves form improbable curlicues that might be a language unknown to us, with a message we’re yet to divine. 

    In The Sound of Bells a similarly airborne trunk, this time missing all but a sprig of its leaves, is put into service as a resting place for a horned mammal who rests its chin above three dangling flowers - or might they be the bells referred to in the painting’s title? In Reclaimed Tree we encounter another tree (or is it always the same one?), this time lifted by arms reaching down from the heavens, and in Irminsul the horizontal orientation of a luminescent tree-shaped entity finds its formal echo in a figure that we glimpse prone amongst the grasslands below. Like the elevated tree, this prone partial figure also recurs across multiple paintings in this exhibition, also appearing in the only painting included that was made before 2025 - which contains a surprising possible explanation for why this figure consistently appears visible only from the knees down.

    Fallen to the ground

     

    It is not uncommon for Dilnot’s people and animal hybrids to appear emerging from - or submerging into - richly decorative visual fields of variegated plant life (for example, in Golden Thought, Exile, and The Sound). Some even appear to be deliberately hiding themselves in the undergrowth, like the horned observer who ominously meets our gaze in The Lost. However, there is one who seems always to be partially exposed in much the same way, showing only feet and trouser legs, walking over a burial mound (in Barrow, perhaps in reference to the old phrase about “someone walking over my grave”), striding into another dimension (in Entering the Stone), or, in two paintings here, recumbent and poking out from behind a dense thatch of grass and shrubs. 

     

    Those prone feet and legs appear in the aforementioned Irminsul, and again in Stranger, observed by another watchful horned head peeping over the horizon. In both paintings we might assume that the feet and legs visible to us are attached to a whole figure, resting on the ground, or otherwise immobilised. However, other paintings here point to different possible interpretations. The similarly positioned boots in Wishing Stone are clearly no more than the personal effects of a warrior, buried with his sword, whose physical remains now amount to no more than a skull. Likewise, in Empty Pots, the titular vessels are rhymed formally with an equally empty pair of trousers, whose boots and trouser legs look strikingly similar to our recurring recumbent figure lain hidden in long grass, suggesting that maybe those grasses are concealing not a body, but rather the absence of one.

    Let us consider where we may have a home, and then think how we may get there

     

    This is our final quotation from Dilnot’s collection of Anglo-Saxon literary sources. Presented here as a fragment, lifted out of context, it offers us ample opportunity for personal interpretation, just as Dilnot’s paintings initiate compelling narratives while resisting a fixed ending to the story, happy or otherwise. Viewed in combination, his pictures put out tendrils to one another in the form of recurrent and interconnected motifs, forming chains of association that grow like crystals. Alternatively, seen in isolation, each painting is a cluster of clues, questions without answers, open to whatever new reading the next viewer might bring.

  • Joseph in Conversation

    Patrick Davies talks with the artist
    WHEN DID YOU FIRST KNOW YOU WANTED TO BE AN ARTIST, AND WHAT DREW YOU SPECIFICALLY TO PAINTING? DO YOU COME FROM A CREATIVE BACKGROUND?

    I have always been interested in creative activities. As a child, I drew, did creative writing, and tried to design board/card games. Making things has been an important outlet for me, but the idea of being an artist came much later. I do come from a creative background; I’m fortunate that both of my parents are artists and have always understood and encouraged my interests. My interest in painting came in my later teens, and the idea of being an artist a little after. I think the action of painting itself is what initially drew me in. The process of picking and mixing colours and then manipulating the paint itself to what you need is still a really rewarding feeling.

    YOU’RE LARGELY SELF-TAUGHT. WAS THERE A REASON YOU DECIDED NOT TO GO TO ART SCHOOL?

    I can think of a few! To cut a long and very teenage story short, I was pushed into areas of art I wasn't interested in from GCSE to Art Foundation. This resulted in me not being able to take part in lessons I would have very much liked to have been part of, such as drawing and painting lessons, and this caused friction between my tutors and me. To give an example. On my art foundation course, the fine art tutor quite proudly considered painting ‘dead’, and I ended up being the only person on the course painting. This, among other instances, resulted in quite a few heated moments, long walks around the campus and being threatened to be removed from the course. I can admit that I wasn't the easiest person to teach at times, but I was very passionate about what I wanted to do. These experiences made me feel like it would be more of the same at university, so I decided not to go and pursue my interests independently, alongside having a job. After some years working independently, I attended the Essential School of Painting on a once-a-week course from 2019-2020, which was a more positive experience but was unfortunately disrupted by the pandemic
     
    YOUR WORK IS SURREAL, EXPLORING THEMES OF LANDSCAPE, MYTHOLOGY, THE HUMAN FORM, AND FANTASTICAL CREATURES. WHAT DRAWS YOU TO THESE SUBJECTS?
     
    I have always really loved the strange and the unexplainable. I like stories that don’t have a clear ending and seemingly unsolvable mysteries. A lot of the worldbuilding in my favourite stories is told through strange characters or events you witness that imply a deeper history or meaning without a laboured explanation. I can’t pin the origin, but I have always been drawn to monsters and creatures; they have featured more than people in my works from childhood to the present day. That is not to say they don’t describe very human moments and display certain human archetypes; there is a freedom in not always describing a human form, and I think we like to find parts of ourselves in the nonhuman. Myths, the strange and the unexplainable in paintings all pose immediate questions to the viewer. It is in our nature to decipher and give meaning to things, and with how ambiguous paintings can be, these devices and themes provide an interesting exchange between the viewer and the painting.
     
    I UNDERSTAND THAT READING PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS AND DIRECTLY INFLUENCES YOUR WORK. COULD YOU TELL ME MORE ABOUT THAT?
     
    I’m really interested in history, and the majority of my reading involves it in one way or another. Most recently, my interest has been in Anglo-Saxon Britain, particularly in the poetry from that time, as they contain some really beautiful imagery and themes that are just as important and relevant now as they were when they were written. Also, because there aren’t as good recordings of this time as other periods in history, it allows you to speculate and fill the gaps yourself on information that is missing. This is particularly true of my native county of Sussex, which was a fairly minor player and location at the time, and there is a lot of space for me as an artist to insert my own imagery, mythology and events while still being inspired by what we do know. 
     
    WHAT OTHER INFLUENCES INFORM OR INSPIRE YOUR PAINTING?
     
    As I have already mentioned, history plays a big part in my work; historical illuminated manuscripts have a fantastic directness that has certainly influenced me. I initially planned to go to university to study animal behaviour, a lot of my interests from this still reside in my paintings. The landscape I grew up in plays a big role in my work; the woodlands and rolling hills frequently feature. 
     
    HOW SIGNIFICANT IS SCALE IN YOUR WORK? YOUR PIECES ARE SMALL, CREATING A SENSE OF INTIMACY WHILE STILL CONVEYING A LARGER NARRATIVE.

    I think it is very important. There is nowhere to hide in a small painting, so it allows you to really focus on the ideas and feelings you want to convey. As you say, it gives a sense of intimacy; you can easily view the painting in its totality and really get an immediate sense of what you may like about it. I think that smaller works can contain a very magical quality that larger works, although impressive, can sometimes lack. I am slowly building a world in my paintings, and I prefer worldbuilding by suggestion, which can allow the viewer to put together narratives themselves. 
     
    ARE THERE OTHER ARTISTS YOU ADMIRE, AND WHAT IS IT ABOUT THEIR WORK THAT INSPIRES YOU? DO ANY OF THEM HAVE A DIRECT INFLUENCE ON YOUR OWN PRACTICE?
     
    I was fortunate enough to catch the retrospective of the works of Hieronymus Bosch in 2016 (Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch, Netherlands), and it would be hard for me to say that it didn’t leave a great impression. Along with Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the sheer amount of activity and goings on in the paintings really captured my imagination, along with the balance of humour and the macabre. Other artists I would include would be Francisco Goya, Edvard Munch and Remedios Varo.
     
    HOW IMPORTANT IS THE VIEWER’S REACTION TO YOUR WORK?
     
    I leave room for the viewer in my works, and I certainly enjoy hearing their reaction. I welcome multiple interpretations. I’m always happy to be more specific about certain themes or imagery if asked, but I have found that a lot of people I speak to enjoy the more enigmatic elements.
     
  • Biography

    Biography

    Joseph Dilnot was born in 1997 in Brighton, UK, and lives and works in Sussex. He is largely self-taught, having pursued his artistic development independently after finishing school in 2015. In 2019, he received both the Newman Young Artist and RosePaul scholarships to study at The Essential School of Painting in London. His work has been exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, including a solo exhibition presented online by mepaintsme (2025). He has participated in a two person exhibition at Weald Contemporary, Brighton, UK (2024), and in Maya Frodeman Gallery, USA (2025); Andelli Art, UK (2025); Blue Shop Gallery, UK (2025 and 2024); Berntson Bhattacharjee, UK (2025); Terrace Gallery, UK (2025); Lido Stores, UK (2024); ESOP, UK (2024; Glyndebourne, UK (2024 and 2023); mepaintsme, online USA (2024 and 2023); Weald Contemporary, UK (2024); Atelier Gallery, UK (2023); Town House Gallery, UK (2023); BAGT Gallery, UK (2022); Bankley Gallery, UK (2022); Oxmarket Gallery, UK (2022); and Hastings Contemporary (2021).

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Framing

    Each painting will be framed using a 0.8 cm light oak profile with a Farrow & Ball light grey emulsion backboard.

    Please get in touch with us for other options.