Aoife Dillon
Aoife Dillon is a painter based in Dublin. In 2023, she was awarded a fully funded studio space for a year at Clancy Quay as the recipient of the Clancy Quay residency award. Other notable achievements include showcasing her painting 'Motherland' at Tate Britain in 2021 as part of the promotion for the 'Life Between Islands' exhibition, being featured in the Irish Arts Review in 2022, and most recently exhibiting at the Copper House Gallery in Dublin. She recently curated a group show titled 'The Lost Land' in her studio and has completed residencies at Unruly Collective in New York and at Can Serrat in Barcelona. Her paintings are owned by the Office of Public Works and the National Treasury Management Agency in Dublin.
Collect Bean: Tell us about a time when you felt you found your groove as an artist.
Aoife Dillon: It really clicked when I started paying attention to and writing down my own dreams after going through a period of having really vivid ones for a while a few years back. It nudged my research topics toward dream analysis, Carl Jung, and ideas of the self and the psyche. I thought- this is it. The dream encapsulates everything I have been trying to articulate through painting; The hidden depths of the subconscious, light and shadow, real and imagined, transitory states, human behavioral psychology, and self-development. And then, when I started using the landscape as a way to depict the human experience instead of the human, it gave my work the nuance that I had been looking for. My work got looser and more intuitive, which opened up more creative freedom for me and room for interpretation for the viewer.
Collect Bean: What does growth mean to you?
Aoife Dillon: Growth to me is more like a spiral than a straight line; it is revisiting the same sticking points over and over again with a deeper understanding of self each time. Growth as an artist feels quite similar, circling back to the same themes and motifs that have always interested you, with deeper skill, technique, material knowledge, and life experience as time goes on. Growth is the gradual process of refinement, chipping away the superfluous. In art, you kind of have to try a bit of everything and figure out who you are creatively through a process of elimination and failure.
Collect Bean: What is one of your current goals as an artist?
Aoife Dillon: A solo show is next on the list.
Collect Bean: What role does color play in your practice?
Aoife Dillon: When it comes to color, I resonate with Kandinsky's theories in his book ‘On Concerning the Spiritual in Art,’ where he describes color as having a rhythmic or melodic quality. He says that applying color is comparable to pressing keys on a piano. I love that way of looking at it because it implies that you are ‘in tune’ or in harmony with the work, and for me, it is completely intuitive in that way. So, to answer the question, color plays a huge role in my practice; my dreamscapes would not be what they are without that immediate vibrancy- it’s what gives my paintings a sense of optimism, energy, and a comforting presence in the space and in the viewer.
Collect Bean: If you could be in a show with any artist, who would it be and why?
Aoife Dillon: Matisse! And for a more contemporary artist I’d say Faye Wei Wei.
