Ed Dingli

Step out of the box and onto a walk with Ed Dingli, an artist and graphic designer from Malta keen to play and experiment with different mediums while listening to radio shows, energetic beats, or soft instrumental music.

Ed's creative process always starts with a pencil and paper in an unfiltered and uncurated way, inspired by everything outside the medium - exhibitions, art house cinema, or live music events.

Read on to be inspired by Ed, and why not do that while listening to one of his curated playlists on Spotify?

il-lokal: How did you develop your making skills?

Ed: Developing skills is a lifelong process. I feel like I'm in an eternal student phase, always eager to explore new mediums - painting, etching, printmaking, analogue photography, cyanotypes. I have full respect for artists who hone in on one craft and become absolute masters of it, but in this current moment, I feel so much more interested in trying out different mediums and experimenting with them all, mastering none but just allowing a sense of play, creation for creations sake. And that usually ends up informing my professional work too - my illustration and design work. 

il-lokal: Do you have a typical audience or customer for your work?

Ed: I have always been more interested in impact over income, so I try to only accept and produce work that allows me to express honestly and openly. I recently listened to an interview with musician and composer Chilly Gonzales, in which he said ‘art is not about impressing people, it’s about connecting with them’. To me, this means trying to let go of creating for an audience and being willing to take more risks. The phrase ‘be ready to fail’ is often thrown around in interviews and advice from artists, but I’m only realising the depths of it now. It means fully letting go of my trusted processes, experimenting further and taking more risks with my work, especially with my painting. 

il-lokal: How important is having an online presence to showcase and promote your work? How does it work for you?

Ed: It’s undoubtedly helped me a lot, but I sometimes need to remind myself to not be a slave to it. There have been times where I’ve doubted posting something because it’s not as aligned with my other work, but then I realise I’m an artist and not a content creator, and variety / experimentation is a vital part of my work. We all know about the evils of Instagram but I believe that when used in the right way, and with limits, it’s an amazing tool. Having lived away from my homeland for around 10 years, social media has allowed me to keep in contact with local artists and the local arts scene, and provided a bridge to real life friendships and connections. It’s also pretty cool that we can showcase our work to a worldwide gallery, and it has helped me get interesting work from projects that would have probably never found me otherwise. What I would say has helped me is to put out the kind of work that you would like to receive. And to show your process, it makes your work more relatable and honest, which an audience usually connects to more. 

il-lokal: What do you do or where do you go when you need a creative boost?

Ed: For a walk! It’s the simplest and best way to get ideas. When I’m starting a project, I usually like to start with a mind-map and very quick doodles using pencil on paper, just trying to get any ideas out of my head and onto paper. After this, it usually really helps to step away from it and do something else, like going for a walk or a cycle, and that’s usually when unexpected ideas appear, which then make me excited to go back to the drawing board and sketch out those ideas. I also think it’s really important to take inspiration from sources that are not necessarily directly related to your own medium. I once read that ‘most of the flow you will have when you are making art will come from all the things you do when you are not making art’. So that includes attending live music events, exhibitions, art house cinema, open talks - I usually leave an event like that buzzing with ideas and inspiration.

il-lokal: What’s your creative process like?

Ed: It always starts with pencil and paper, getting those initial thoughts out of my mind and onto paper, unfiltered and uncurated, mind-mapping and writing down anything that comes to mind. After this, I usually begin to doodle visual cues that could allude to those words - often in the form of simple symbols or thumbnail drawings. The thumbnails are usually where the artwork takes shape - focusing purely on composition and not paying any attention to detail. The end result almost always ends up taking a similar form to the thumbnail sketch. Then I go on to create the final artwork in whatever medium I am using for that particular project. 

il-lokal: What are the principles that shape your practice?

Ed: Community-focused. Collaboration. Creating with empathy, conscientiousness, playfulness, and joy. Prioritizing impact over income. I wouldn’t call it a manifesto or anything, but ultimately, it’s about doing work that feels authentic to who I am.

il-lokal: Do any of your designs hold a special or personal meaning for you?

Ed: Non-commercial work always holds the deepest meaning for me. Maybe that’s why I constantly immerse myself in side projects—projects driven purely by expression or experience. I’ve always felt a strong responsibility to use my position of privilege to support grassroots or activist organizations aligned with causes I believe in. For me, drawing is both a weapon of expression and a form of catharsis. It can raise awareness, foster empathy, and stand as an act of solidarity.

il-lokal: Where do you work? What do you like most about your workspace?

Ed: I recently moved into a studio that’s a shared space with other artists. There are four of us, and the other three all work on very different crafts to mine: a fashion designer, a ceramic artist and a weaver. It’s something I’ve always dreamed of, working in a space with artists of different disciplines. The studio itself is in a sweet little village on the coast of Portugal, and it’s cycling distance from my home. Getting on the bike and cycling to it is the best way to start the day. It’s been a big relief from spending all my working time alone, which is how it was until recently.

il-lokal: What kind of music do you listen to while working?

Ed: Music is such an integral part of my process. I like to listen to radio shows, NTS live in the morning and then Gilles Peterson & Cerys Matthews on BBC Six Music, both of whom regularly interview musicians, artists, poets and sometimes have sessions live in studio. It all depends on what I’m working on really, and I’ve noticed how the tempo of the music affects the way I work too - beats for energy and soft instrumental for concentration. I sometimes create public Spotify playlists too, called ‘In the zone’, for others to listen to. It’s fun to know that others are listening at the same time. 

il-lokal: What are you working on right now? Do you have any exciting things in progress that you’d like to share?

Ed: I am about to set off on an adventure through West Africa. It is a collaboration with a musician who I connected with at Shambala, a festival in the UK that I created the artwork for. Together we are following the migratory routes of endangered birds. Axel does sound recording and I will be doing documentation in the form of photography and drawing. I am treating it as an artistic project in its own right, without really having any predefined outcomes, just being open to whatever comes of it. Personally, it ticks many boxes in terms of what I seek from a project: community, collaboration, nature inspired, and music related - bridging different art forms together. 

Shop Ed Dingli's Prints.

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Photo Credit: Dave Zammit / Ed Dingli