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.…