UNTITLED SAN FRANCISCO

17-19 January 2020
San Francisco, California
Booth A-14
Artist: Andy Dixon

Available Work
MIAMI VERSACE SHIRT

We are thrilled to be exhibiting at Untitled San Francisco Art Fair for the 4th edition this coming January with a solo presentation by the talented Andy Dixon.

Dixon’s newest works continue to build upon the themes and mythology the LA-based artist has been exploring for several years. The artist is known for his self-conscious, tongue-in-cheek play upon the stereotypes surrounding the decadent lifestyle of ‘the artist’ throughout history; as such, the pieces are self-journaling while continuing to explore the same art-historical tropes seen in his past work, which feature wealth, decadence, and extravagance with a critical yet complicit understanding of his role within this context.

The title of the show, We Open on Andy Dixon, Vain, Egotistical, Materialistic, Unoriginal, Sitting in a Hollywood Restaurant, which is itself a play on a quote from Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation, where Kaufman himself, played by Nicholas Cage, realizes he needs to write himself into his own script. In this new body of work, there are two self portraits, painted identically except for a change in Dixon’s outfit and environment, one in Musso & Franks in Hollywood, and one in the Beverly Hills Hotel, both a nod to a specific David Hockney self portraits in his body positioning.

There’s also a reclining nude of his partner, Liz, on a Mercedes Benz in Echo Park, a still life of a selection of their belongings, and an interior of their apartment which contains the repainted works of other artists, Landon Metz, and David Shrigley.

For more information on the fair please visit their site HERE

Andy Dixon’s work is consummately aware of the art-world’s relationship with money. His large, instantly recognizable paintings often retread similar subject matter and themes: lavish (Dutch-influenced) still lives, reclining nudes, ornate ballrooms, bathing beauties, or – most recently – paintings of patrons’ homes (where his own paintings feature prominently on the walls in the background), paintings of ‘fancy things’, or of fashionable garments: most notably his recent collaboration with fashion house Versace, resulting in an oversized (2 metre tall) Versace shirt, and even a line of luxury bedding released by the brand. Borrowing content from Renaissance and Rococo art, Flemish still-life tradition, a loose yet definitive style that is both Classically informed and contemporarily irrelevant, his own work asks, “What is the value of a painting of a valuable object? As Alex Quicho writes in Luxury Object, Luxury Subject, “His postmodern non-interest in either vilifying or reifying luxury cooly transmutes its weirdness.” A self-taught painter and former punk-rocker, his own persona projects from his work – like a modern-day Andy Warhol, and Dixon situates himself somehow as a critical but complicit player within a larger arena. His treatment of the high-brow content in a crude manner, matching a vivid pastel palette with rough line treatment, brings this tongue-in-cheek awareness to the forefront. His practice has recently expanded to include 3D sculptures which mimic the figures in his paintings—absurdly disproportionate, yet still created with an eye toward beauty. In this way, Dixon’s own appreciation of his subject matter is evident; and while his work questions the subjective valuation of artwork, it also proves that it doesn’t necessarily detract from its beauty.

ANDY DIXON (b. 1979, Vancouver, Canada) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Solo exhibitions include: No Big Deal I Want More’, OTI Gallery, Hong Kong (2019); ‘Look at This Stuff Isn’t It Neat’, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York (2019); ‘Alchemy’ BEERS London, London, UK (2018), ‘On the Ceiling of my Suite in the Royal Palace, Wilding Cran, Los Angeles (2018); ‘Expensive Things II’, Winsor Gallery, Art Toronto (2016); ‘Expensive Things I’, Winsor Gallery, Art Toronto (2016); and ‘Leisure Studies’, RHG, New York (2015). Group exhibitions & fairs include: ’10 Year Anniversary’, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York (2018); ‘Drawing Room’ OTI, Hong Kong (2018); ‘How Much do They Cost?’, PULSE Miami Beach with BEERS London (2018); ‘O Canada’, BEERS London, London, UK (2017); ‘Pronk’, Volta New York with BEERS London (2017); New York (2017), ‘Art Seattle’, Winsor Gallery, Seattle (2017); and ‘Art Toronto’, Windsor gallery, Toronto (2016). Dixon will be exhibiting at UNTITLED San Francisco with a solo in presentation in January 2020.