Geoff Dixon

Imagine if 11 year old Geoff Dixon realised that the Southland doctor taking out his tonsils in 1965 was the man who rediscovered the Takahe? And that Geoff would use the Takahe as a bellwether to show that humankind was rapidly destroying the planet, across a 40 year painting career?

Geoff Dixon was born in Bluff, New Zealand in 1954, and studied graphic design at the Christchurch Technical Institute, 1974-75. He was the 1997 Art Foundation Artist-in-Residence in Southland, and the Art Centre of Christchurch’s Artist-in-Residence, 2007-8. He lives and works in Cairns, Queensland.

Geoff has long been concerned with the fragility of the natural world alongside the human drive for collection and preservation, and with our contribution to the tragedy of extinction. He confronts his audience regularly with the unsettling fact that a third of New Zealand’s remaining bird species are in serious decline. Geoff uses birds on the verge of extinction to reflect the state of our ecology and he says that the paintings are also ‘portraits of us.’

Exhibitions

To the moon and stars and back, 2022
Wrapped, 2020
January stock show, 2018
Summer stock show, 2017
What’s in the drawers, 2017
Summer show, 2013-14
January works from stock, 2013
Seasons greetings, 2011
Stuff up, 2011
New works on paper, 2009
Stock show, 2008
Works on paper/ drawings in stock, 2007
Landscape, 2006
Work in stock, 2005
Works on paper/ Drawings, 2004
Group show, 2002

Geoff Dixon