3 Kirkgate Ripon, North Yorkshire, HG4 1PA
tel: 01765 602878 email: thegallery@hornseys.com
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jo dixon

Jo graduated from the Edinburgh College of Art this summer with a First Class Honours degree in Fine Art. In September she will be studying at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. The paintings exhibited here are from her ‘A march of half-lives’ series and were completed between 2007-2008. They were previously exhibited in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Through the depiction of children in my work, I am trying to represent some very adult emotions. A feeling that is hidden in an adult can be obvious in a child's behaviour.

I am interested in the sinister undercurrents in human relationships, looking specifically at aspects such as fear and anxiety. Generally, children's fearful emotions, such as the "monster under the bed", are purely psychological and the result of an overactive imagination.

This invented fear becomes a memory preserved by powerful emotions and it allows a particular imprint to be etched onto our lives. The aim in my new work is to capture the essence of an imprint using a sense of the absurd in a busy and confused environment.

The 1986 Chernobyl disaster had effects around the world. Nuclear related illness and children born with impairments are still reported today. The consequences of nuclear disasters, like Chernobyl in the Ukraine, Three Mile Island in the USA and the nuclear assault on Hiroshima in Japan are still prevalent in our minds. Fear of nuclear warfare is an underlying terror and repetition of images such as the Mushroom Cloud desensitise us to its true implications.

I use mixed media, layering and repetitive imagery to build a comment on nuclear disaster and its effects on the general population. Is it a vision of the future…or a window into our recent past?

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Quilled with tiny seeds Scattered Nil by mouth Flies in a Teapot Deck Blue Cloth Flight Gift Blue Gray Green Octopus Orange Purple Red Strawberries Tap Yellow Hidden