Artist Statement:

 

Nostalgic experiences have a way of extending itself to reshape our personal fantasies and dreams. It can infiltrate our memories to make them a little more exaggerated and not merely as authentic. And yet, it is still a mysterious and well embraced phenomenon that nostalgia allows us to have the  perfect homecoming, to return to a place and time where we long to relive. Depictions of Black childhood nostalgia are channeled through personal memories and feelings about racial awareness in my large scale paintings. I attempt to capture young Black female figures glowing in a fantastical world, an imperfect Edenic playground, where the present and past dwell on the same plane. The body of work that you see is a compilation of paintings and linocut prints that dives into black female maturation and its relationship to the natural world. Inspired by the history of Dutch Renaissance pastoral painting and portraiture, along with Black history, I create atmospheric landscapes that symbolize a gateway to an ideal and dream-like world, tied where Black innocence and nostalgia can coexist. 

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Artist Bio

 

Audia Yvonne Dixon (b. 1992, Fresno CA), painter and printmaker, comes from a family of artists and matriarchs who continue to influence her work. Dixon holds a BA in Art from CSU-Fresno (2016) and has recently earned an MA in Studio Art, also at CSU-Fresno (2021) where she was a recipient for both the Graduate Deans and President’s Dean’s Medal in 2022 for her academic and community contributions in art. She has participated in numerous exhibitions and public art projects, including at the Fresno Yosemite International Airport (Dec 2021); 1418 Fulton in Downtown Fresno, the graduate thesis exhibition at the Phebe Conley Gallery at CSU Fresno (November 2021) , and Bakersfield College (September 2022). She also has participated in collaborative murals such as Dulce Upfront’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing” mural tour (2020).  And she was a guest speaker at Cornell University for their monthly Visual Cultural Colloquium. She is currently an Art Instructor at Clovis Community College.

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You can read more about the artist and her work here: https://fresnostatecah.com/2022/03/26/student-of-distinction-audia-dixon/

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