Christine Dixon is a contemporary realist painter living in Loudoun County who is inspired by the Dutch Golden Age. Though she has been creating art for many years, in 2016 she was able to forgo her former professions as designer and then teacher to pursue fine art full time.
Ms. Dixon holds a degree in graphic design from the University of Maryland, through her skills as a classical painter are largely self-taught. She initially focused on the creation of works in watercolors, selling pieces through word-of-mouth while working to help support her family. A transition to oil painting came years later, when she was able to occasionally enroll in local painting classes at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia. She has received a number of regional awards and her works have been collected in the US, Europe and the UK.
A fondness for oil painting developed gradually over time when she found that she could greatly increase her skill level through the execution of small still life paintings. What she learns from these exercises carries over into larger paintings and in scenic and figurative work as well.
“In my paintings I like to bring out the sublime qualities of ordinary people and things. In life, if I see anything that catches my attention, I sometimes reimagine how I might idealize it in a painting. I like to emphasize a particular mood or spiritual quality in the person and objects I am portraying. When preparing set-ups for my paintings, I choose my subjects carefully, arranging organic with man-made things until I have closely recreated what I have envisioned. Simple compositions of glowing light, harmonious color and texture minimize distraction in order to emphasize the subliminal. When painting people, I am looking sympathetically at what lies within and I so enjoy the exploration.”
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