Nic Dillon

Nic Dillon is a Devon-based painter working in oils on linen and panel. Using figurative imagery drawn from observation, personal history and research, her work explores how identity is interpreted, categorised and shaped by social, cultural and familial narratives.
Dillon is particularly interested in the language and symbolism used to describe and define internal states. Recent paintings, developed from research begun during a residency in a former psychiatric hospital in Finland, examine histories of diagnosis and the ways women’s experiences have been labelled, interpreted and controlled. Drawing on sources ranging from psychiatric case histories and diagnostic systems to religious imagery and representations of motherhood, the work considers how authority is constructed through acts of naming and classification.
Figures often appear in pairs: mothers and children, couples, or other intimate relationships. Decorative interiors and wallpaper function as more than background, becoming structures that contain, entangle and frame the subjects they surround. Through a process of layering, revision and erosion, images emerge and recede, reflecting the instability of memory, interpretation and belief.
Working across dramatically different scales, from large works on linen to small gessoed icon panels, Dillon uses the physicality of the work to challenge assumptions about significance, value and impact. Paintings place mothers and infants drawn from psychiatric archives on intimate icon panels while newborn babies occupy expansive linen supports, disrupting preconceptions of status, relationship, and agency.
Alongside her studio practice, Dillon founded Arthouse, an artist-led residential project in Devon.
nicdillon.co.uk
@nicdillon.art
@arthouse_netherton