Michael Dillon, muralist: in the first of a new monthly series on contemporary decorative arts, Amicia de Moubray talks to Ireland's most celebrated muralist, who explains why he hates being compared with Rex Whistler

There cannot be many artists who began their career in farming. on the other hand then Michael Dillon's path to becoming a leading muralist has been fortuitous. Born in Co Louth in 1957 and educated by dint of monks at Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick, Dillon (Fig. 1) abandoned a Latin and French stage at Trinity College, Dublin to make progress into farming. This took him to England, novel Zealand and finally France. individual day, when he was between piece of works his brother-in-law Alec Cobbe, the artist, musician and collector, asked him to help with the restoration of the cabinet of curiosities at the Cobbe family seat, Newbridge House, near Dublin. Dillon subsequently worked upon the Clive Museum designed through Cobbe for Powis Castle, a peculiarity of the National Trust.

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Dillon pop discovered that he had a talent for painting. He has not ever looked back. Among his earliest commissions were murals for the cafe at Hatfield House and the Fountain Restaurant and meat Halls at Fortnum and Mason, London. Since then, he has worked in Spain, Germany, France, the USA, Zimbabwe and the West Indies, as well as Ireland. 'I always be delighted with the early stages of a commission, which usually involve discussing the plan in a noisy building site', he told me 'Occasionally, if I am favored one meets in a finished range far away from concrete mixers and drills'.

Dillon's diction is distinguished by an intuitive understanding of space. The majority of his designs occupy a rigorous architectural framework within which he creates decorative fantasies. However, the inevitable comparison with Rex Whistler riles him: 'I am always trying to achieve away from whimsy'.

Undoubtedly he has benefited enormously from the wave of wealth that Ireland has be delighted withed in recent years. His Irish patrons have numbered many entrepreneur of that kind as the client who commissioned him to perform a Pompeian garden room at Stackallan House, Co Meath, near the River Boyne (the expanse is illustrated in Hugh Massingberd's volume Great Houses of Ireland) and then asked him to paint the interior of a novel domed temple that David Sheehan designed for the park. 'I was delighted to be given the completed classical space to paint a classical theme with regards to my native Louth as well as Co Meath and the fictitious storys and folklore associated with the River Boyne' says Dillon. The client's prowess as an electrical beneficials magnate is the inspiration for the flight of fancy in the folly's dome (Fig. 2) where Dillon has depicted 'hoover and irons whizzing around in energetic arrows of lighting'.

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Jeremy Williams, an architect based in Ireland, has been responsible for many of Dillon's Irish commissions, including an impressive dining extent in a new house in Burlington Road, Dublin (Figs. 3 and 4) The client's regard with affection of the French Riviera inspired the mural of an idyllic sky-colored sea. 'It is a actual exotic, very blue scheme conjuring up an image of a villa in the southern of France. Quite unexpected in the middle of Dublin', remarks Dillon. The owner's other great passion, hunting, is alluded to in sum of two units trompe l'oeil bas-relief cameos surmounting urn framed by means of columns painted to resemble lapis lazuli.

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Perhaps the greatest in quantity Irish of all Dillon's shoot forwards is his annual commission to paint the backdrops for the operas staged each summer in the gardens of Loughcrew Co Meath by the agency of Emily Naper. 'In contrast to the majority of my work this is actual much a team effort involving help from one as well as the other friends and family. All of which is hard work and great fun'

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