Alex Dixon

Alex Dixon lives and works in Adelaide, South Australia.

Whilst working as a teacher with the Education Department in South Australia she has undertaken studies at Adelaide Central School of Art. She currently teaches English as a Second Language and Art at Marryatville High School in Adelaide as well as working as an artist.

Primarily working in oil pastels, Alex develops her drawings through an extensive layering process that results in a highly-textured surface and a richness of colour.

Her subjects are often natural, organic objects although in many works the subject itself becomes secondary to the interest created by the interplay of light and shadow with the form of object.

Dixon's work varies from stylised pieces that draw on the classical genre of the still life, to more modern or contemporary compositions - close-up views of the interior of pearlescent pomegranates, the dark undergrowth of a dense rainforest, almost-abstract arrangements of objects that seem to blur in and out of focus as in a photograph.

After seeing a make-up case in a Performing Arts Collection display at the Adelaide Festival Centre, Dixon embarked on her latest works, images of items from a theatrical past, used in Adelaide's much loved "Tivoli" theatre.

Artist Statement:
"Although my work has primarily been in the Still Life genre, this body of work represents a significant development. Having focussed on organic subject matter in much of my work, these works (items from Tivoli theatre) allow for a continued focus on the form of objects but brings into play elements of human character and emotion. Each object has a history, a link with a performer and a past era that shapes the way I work as an artist and the way viewers respond to the works.

In these works, I am hoping to capture the fun, the whimsy and the sense of the bizarre of Tivoli style performance and the melancholy of a theatrical past."

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2009
"Life In The Tivoli", Hill Smith Gallery, Adelaide
2005
Hill-Smith Fine Art, Adelaide
2002
Hill Smith Fine Art Gallery SALA WEEK Exhibition

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2005
Gallery Artists exhibition, Hill Smith Fine Art, Adelaide
Artichoque Gallery at The Banque, Adelaide
Wishart Gallery, Pt. Fairy, Victoria
2001
Hill-Smith Fine Art, Adelaide
2000
Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide

Awards
2006
Finalist, Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, South Australian Museum