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Matt Dillon’s New Paintings Trace a Journey Across West Africa
The actor developed his new body of work while filming Claire Denis's "The Fence."
A little over a decade ago, the actor Matt Dillon was at a friend’s apartment when he started doodling with crayons left out for children. Soon, his kitchen counter had become a workshop. By 2016, he was renting a studio to paint in. Despite having little formal training himself, Dillon grew up in an artistic family (his father and grandmother were portrait painters and his great-uncle created Flash Gordon) and inherited a love for image-making.
Dillon’s style that has emerged in a steady clip of gallery exhibitions in recent years is spontaneous, textured, and gestural. He paints bold, flat works marked with mercurial figures, recurring symbols, and unexplained words. When on set and away from the studio, Dillon makes do with what’s at hand, lathering acrylic on loose paper and repurposed notebooks. The practice is on show in his first solo show at The Journal Gallery in New York, “Porto Novo to Abomey,” which opens April 24.
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Matt Dillon debuts West African-inspired solo exhibition in New York
Actor Matt Dillon launched his first solo exhibition at The Journal Gallery in New York on Friday, April 24, showcasing a body of work developed during and after filming in West Africa, per news.artnet.com.
The show, titled “Porto Novo to Abomey,” features spontaneous, gestural paintings that trace a 100-mile journey through Benin, documenting the actor’s observations of the region’s textiles, architecture and landscapes.
The series was conceived while Dillon was in Senegal filming Claire Denis’s 2025 production “The Fence,” in which he portrays an American overseeing a construction project. Following the shoot, Dillon travelled inland through Benin to the historic centre of the Kingdom of Dahomey. These experiences provided the primary source material for the collection, which includes works on black Masonite, repurposed notebooks and more.
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