Jo Dixon, born in England 1986, completed a BA (Honours) in Painting from Edinburgh College of Art in 2008, where she created a series of photo-realistic portraiture paintings. In 2010, she graduated from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London with a Masters in Contemporary Art History. Alongside her studio practice, Jo worked at an international art consultancy in London prior to her relocation to Sydney. In this position, she was involved in providing art consultancy services from strategy and planning, to procurement and installation worldwide, making art accessible in corporate, private and public environments.

Jo’s paintings explore the notion that existence is formed of infinite layers of cognition, technology and scientific theory, among others. Each work is a deconstruction down to a simpler abstract form through experimentation with layering geometric structures, photographic appropriation and gestural mark-making. Inspiration is derived from depictions of architecture; natural landscapes; fauna and the manipulation of schematic modular structures originating from crystallography and molecular biology. Alongside these geometric forms, she juxtaposes and re-contextualises photo-realistic objects from her everyday observations, memories and experiences. Each different element or text refers to and has an effect upon another. Her paintings subvert the rigidity of graphic design with the spontaneity of painterly expression by trying to convey this uneasy balance – of a reality we can see and a abstract reality we cannot.

In 2007 and 2008 Jo won the Andrew Grant Bequest award from Edinburgh Collage of Art and was invited into the Wasps Artist Studios in Glasgow. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and continues to work from her studio in Sydney, Australia.