Julian Dix - Painter, Visual Artist, Goldsmith, Musician
I grew up immersed in the arts, and have been making and creating for as long as I can remember. Our home was saturated in art; on the walls, in books, many gallery excursions - it was ever present.
My influences were many, but chief among them are my grandfather, who’s work fascinated me from my earliest memory, and my father - who was a Senior Conservator for the Canadian National Gallery (Ottawa) - as well as my uncle, aunt, many cousins... art flows in our veins.
Music has also been a constant love. From high school, I played full time until age 27, when I experienced the desire to create something more tangible, something that remained after the making. I went back to college to study Jewellery Art & Design, and on graduating joined Karl Stittgen.
Goldsmithing was my career for 30 years.
During this time, raising my family, I never stopped making and creating, always drawing. Then, at age 44, I picked up a paintbrush and a new passion ignited.
My influences were many, but chief among them are my grandfather, who’s work fascinated me from my earliest memory, and my father - who was a Senior Conservator for the Canadian National Gallery (Ottawa) - as well as my uncle, aunt, many cousins... art flows in our veins.
Music has also been a constant love. From high school, I played full time until age 27, when I experienced the desire to create something more tangible, something that remained after the making. I went back to college to study Jewellery Art & Design, and on graduating joined Karl Stittgen.
Goldsmithing was my career for 30 years.
During this time, raising my family, I never stopped making and creating, always drawing. Then, at age 44, I picked up a paintbrush and a new passion ignited.
Now, at age 58, painting has escalated from something that I did on the side, to what I now do full time.
I am most excited when exploring an idea that I don’t fully understand, something that is greater than me, a piece that takes me to uncharted realms of ideas and impressions that strive to move through my brushes onto canvas. I am aware that what I am creating is at the edge of my understanding and the painting becomes a process of discovering what wishes to reveal itself.
2020 has been a pivitol year. These most recent series ‘Love and Loss’ and 'They & Us', are my significant transitional works. Theses paintings exemplify the way art moved through me, coming down onto the canvas as if channelled, the skills and techniques well embedded enough for the intuition and inspiration to flow of their own accord.
I am most excited when exploring an idea that I don’t fully understand, something that is greater than me, a piece that takes me to uncharted realms of ideas and impressions that strive to move through my brushes onto canvas. I am aware that what I am creating is at the edge of my understanding and the painting becomes a process of discovering what wishes to reveal itself.
2020 has been a pivitol year. These most recent series ‘Love and Loss’ and 'They & Us', are my significant transitional works. Theses paintings exemplify the way art moved through me, coming down onto the canvas as if channelled, the skills and techniques well embedded enough for the intuition and inspiration to flow of their own accord.
