Informed by personal mythology, literature, and a deep connection to his local landscape, the paintings of Joseph Dilnot (b.1997) open our imaginations to landscapes made up of hidden glades, living mountains and ethereal clouds, unfurling as visual poems in which the earthly coexists alongside the enigmatic. Dilnot’s imaginary creatures and mythological hybrids are absorbed by these fantastical terrains and are often found walking in and out of the landscape, sometimes half hidden or remaining on the edges of the scene, navigating the enormity of the physical world, while simultaneously engrossed in an insistent, internal drive to find answers to unknown questions.

With canvases bathed in rich, glowing colors, Dilnot engages us in this world by suggestion, knowingly leaving gaps and mysteries, as you might find in historical manuscripts, weathered and erased by time. Indeed, the exhibition title, Enta Geweorc, comes from the old English words scribed within the Anglo Saxon poem The Ruin, written in the 8th or 9th century and published in The Exeter Book in the 10th Century. A burn mark has erased sections of the poem which coincidentally underscores themes of the poem itself — the repeated rise and fall of the human empire as a metaphor for human nature and experience. It describes a Roman city (referred to as 'the work of giants' in several Anglo Saxon poems) that has since fallen to ruin in the years between the Roman exit from Britain and this Anglo Saxon description. The artist was particularly inspired by the almost apocalyptic tone and chose to interpret 'the work of giants', as well as other lines such as 'earthy grasp' to be nature, or a natural force reclaiming the land and these man made structures.

This reimagining of the time sets the paintings in a 'post event' world — the only indications of a human presence are ghosts, skeletons and objects below the ground or sealed inside stones. As a counterbalance to the wayward wanderings into the ineffable darkness of human nature, the artist offers the viewer a charming, and sometimes humorous respite.  Within the painted scenes, ordinary objects like ladders, candles, and abandoned shoes seem to possess magical qualities with the potential to enable a transformative experience. Dilnot offers the anticipation of the event or the quiet absence of the aftermath. These metaphysical and spiritual quests are the enablers of hope, personal liberation and enlightenment, assuaging grief and feelings of loss.