Dixon Revue

Join us for the Opening Reception of Dixon Revue from 5 - 8 pm, Saturday, March 23rd in beautiful downtown Benicia. In conjunction with Dixon Revue, works by Pam Dixon, will be on display nearby at the Rellik Tavern after April 1st.

Dixon Revue showcases quintessential Pam Dixon, as reviewed by Gregory Ghent, long time Bay Area art critic, collector, curator and art historian in:

Thoughts on looking at artworks by Pam Dixon for the past 30 years.

In our culture, an artist worth their salt has… Show more to be fearless and push the envelopes of style, imagery, and techniques. I say in our culture because whereas we in the west insist on those elements as necessary to fine art, they are not considered necessary in other parts of the world where there is no tradition of the artist as an isolated genius. To me, Dixon is a quintessential and important artist for our place and time.

Perhaps unique to Dixon is the fact that her favorite medium is gesso, scooped up in one hand, with ink dragged along in the other hand, making 'sense' out of the gesso smear. Dixon paints with her hands and available sticks and brushes. She is also fearless when adding onto the gesso a variety of very different materials: firecracker paper, brillo pads, carbon paper, packing foam and a shocking lime green wig are all in one collage (Ca-ca Patrol, 1987).

Here’s how she works: Imagine a large canvas with a bunch of figures and stuff already painted on it. But only one eye of a creature -- half-horse/half-woman -- looks back at Pam; a spirit is in that one eye peeking out of the mass of stuff. She gessoes out everything except that eye. She needs that eye. What is predictable or a cliché will be expunged so that the painting (or sculpture) has a life force of its own. This accounts for the impression of spontaneity. The painting will be revised until it appears to have sprung spontaneously from the artist's hand. Like Degas or Picasso, she never "finishes" a painting; she simply has to abandon it.

Pam Dixon conjures up a world teeming with wacky monsters and benign creatures. Wielding a delicious (one could even say confectionary) color palate, Dixon exposes her naive characters with all their obvious flaws, their disabilities and limitations in a way that is sobering but fascinating. The work is deceptively playful, easy on the eye, easy to grasp.

The artworks have that special something that provokes a visual dialog that has no end. Without a kind of mystery, an element of the unexpected, fine art can go stale and cease to engage the imagination. Despite the audacious subject matter of cats and dogs, eccentric people, magic transformations, floating heads and discarded feet, there is a complexity of color, form and rhythmic line, satisfying to the most sophisticated taste.

Read the unabridged review online at Gallery621.com

For more than 40 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, Gregory Ghent was an art critic, collector, gallery owner, museum curator, art historian, appraiser, artist and philanthropist. He now lives in the New Mexico desert.

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