About the Artist

Christine Dixon is a contemporary realist painter living in Northern Virginia who specializes in still life and portraiture. Inspired by the Dutch Golden Age and classical methods of painting, she uses an indirect method of layering paint in order to achieve depth and soft transitions of light in her work. 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 BA in graphic design from the University of Maryland, though her skills as a classical painter are largely self-taught. She initially focused on the creation of figurative 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. At that time, she developed a love for still life painting and found that painting small works of simple set-ups could greatly increase her oil painting skills. She has received a number of regional awards for both her still life and figurative pieces. More recently she was accepted as a finalist in the Salmagundi Club’s 42nd Annual Painting, Sculpture & Graphics Exhibition in New York City and the Butler Institute of American Art’s Midyear Show. As a cancer survivor, it was a special honor to have one of her works procured as a permanent piece by the Loudoun INOVA Hospital, SHAR Cancer Institute. Her works have been collected in the US, Europe and the UK.

“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 what I see 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 still life 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.”

Memberships

The Art League, Alexandria, VA

Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts, VA

Portrait Society of America

International Guild of Realism

Oil Painters of America

NOAPS