Jane Dixon

Paintings from the Camouflage and the Warplane Series

The plane paintings, all of obsolete war planes, are pictorially reduced interiors where elements of the planes are suspended in a milky layering of translucent glazes. They embody the fragile susceptible construction of what were once destructive machines. "..reinforc[ing] the gulf between power and impotence, the fiction of invulnerability versus the fact of vulnerability," keys to Dixon's work.

For Dixon "the[se] planes…represent a 'dual vulnerability' that of both aggressor and victim."

The Camouflage series, where she paints camouflage and decoy buildings from the second world war reflect a deceit – since they are not what they seem. The paintings present this ambiguity by confusing, exaggerating and disrupting the figure ground relationship "sometimes the buildings are isolated, appearing to float within an empty picture plane, at other times they are almost lost within a field of marks. The approach as a whole mimics the effect – that of visual disruption – of the original camouflage. In the process the artificiality of both image and original source is heightened."

"[Dixon's] work is about vulnerability.….. [it] speak[s] eloquently of simple but important truths; of our need to hide our failings, to protect our weakness…"

These 12 paintings have been selected from Dixon's "Under False Colours" exhibition that was exhibited at the Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham and in Japan at Tokyo Gallery and Yokohama Portside Gallery.

Dixon received her MA at the Royal College of Art. She has won numerous awards including The Rome Scholarship for Printmaking in 1989, The Rothko Fellowship in 1997 and was the Kettle’s Yard Artist Fellow in 2000/2001. She has been exhibiting in Britain, Europe and Japan and her work can be found in many public and private collections including Victoria and Albert Museum, Fitzwilliam Museum and Arts Council Collection.

(All quotes are from Ben Tufnell's (Curator at Tate Britain) essay in the catalogue "Under False Colours")

It has recently been announced that Jane Dixon has been selected to represent Britain at the Ljubljana International Print Biennale

Jane Dixon Home Page

Untitled VII

Untitled IV

Plane Interior IX