Rebecca Dixon
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Portraits
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Arrested
Coming Soon
Photography
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About
Rebecca Dixon BAHons Photography / MA Contemporary CuratingI'm a fine art photographer based in Manchester, UK. My main interests lie in the study of photography as an examination of nostalgia and memory. I have undertaken a variety of exhibited projects with the aim of gaining better insight into how photography relates to the psyche of both the artist and the viewer, from the production stage to presentation. Though my work may seem to be deeply personal, its intimate and faceless nature is designed to appear nostalgic to all.I'm available for exhibitions and commissions, feel free to get in touch.ExhibitionsAutumn Colours - Altrincham Art Gallery09/2007Signatures - Neoartist Gallery, Bolton01/2011Degree Show - University of Bolton 06/2011
Portraits
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My House is my Body
All occupied houses are possessed in two kinds of ways. They are possessions, they are owned as physical properties. But they are also possessed in a way that a body can be possessed by a foreign being – the will of the host overcomes its existence. The soul becomes its existence.And as such my great grandmother was the soul of her house. For almost eighty years she possessed it in every sense of the word, the character of the house was a reflection of hers, and at the age of one hundred she died. Shortly after her death I visited the house with a naïve expectation for it to remain as it had done, unchanged, for all of those years. However, what I was greeted with was something entirely different. There was a palpable sense that the soul had left the building. The physical possessions had disappeared and the walls were bare, rendering the house completely and utterly unfamiliar.This collection of photographs not only helped in coming to terms with the death of a family member but also demonstrates how casually and unexpectedly the loss of a familiar and treasured place can occur. Our houses are our bodies and we are their souls.
Fashion
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Fabricated Perfections
There is an illusion of perfection within our family albums. We seek to glorify certain moments above all others by photographing them, and in doing so we actively choose and control our histories, shaping them into perfect nostalgias. This body of work consists of carefully chosen moments from my personal collection of domestic images. Re-worked and drawn as faceless idealisms, they have been photographed in front of equally faceless backdrops; advertisements for the 'perfect' home found in lifestyle magazines. Highlighting the distance between personal memory and truth, my fabricated perfections are intended to be intimate yet impersonal; recognisable yet questionable.
Landscape
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Memory Obscura
My theoretical studies about photography as a tool to collect memories have made me question everything I photograph, as well as the nature of memory and truth. It seems we are compelled to record what is considered a straight narrative, yet in reality, history and memory cannot escape manipulation once it has passed through the lens of a camera. Inside my fabricated Box Brownies, personal journeys and surreal narratives of memory are caught inside the camera. The viewer has to peer through the eye of the lens to discover what is being recorded, hanging between what is real and what is remembered. Though deeply personal, my faceless narratives aim to stir up universal memories. My images may appear to be snapshots, but they are carefully selected in order to be recognised by you; highlighting the power of the camera to manipulate the ways in which we remember, considering the collective role of the camera, the picture taker and the viewer in the creation of memory.
Arrested
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Arrested Motion
Our domestic albums are constructed according to conventions that have been influenced by society. We know when and how to take photographs in order to give the illusion of perfect memories. But what if we compile our albums according to a different set of conventions; one that seeks out aesthetics and nothing more? Can we establish a more personal narrative at the same time as satisfying a more universal appeal to intuition?This body of work is based on Edmund Burke’s philosophical writings on the beautiful and the sublime, in which he examines elements that make a work of art aesthetically pleasing. He writes that sensation, imagination and judgement are interrelated in the experience of a work of art and it seems to me that these three things must also exist in order for a domestic album to fulfil its function. I have therefore sought to harvest these aesthetic elements as snapshots of everyday life.In presenting examples of the sublime and the beautiful side by side, I hope to convey a series of journeys, encounters, nostalgias and observances and in doing so deliver the notion of a purer aesthetic.
Coming Soon
Not Faulty, Faded or Torn.
Perhaps relating to my coming of age and the anxieties of adult relationships, the past few years of my life have witnessed a battle with my image through the persistent purchasing of high street clothing. Mounting self-consciousness has seen my wardrobe double in size, literally groaning with the weight of hundreds of items of clothing that I have worn once before finding a reason to never wear again. Despite this, I continue to obsessively hoard tonnes of fabric that is apparently of no use to me, perhaps to ease the guilt of an obscene amount of money wasted on unnecessary materialisms. Not faulty, faded, or torn; the reasons as to why my clothes are useless to me are rooted in the girls I see on the city streets, plastered on magazine pages and advertisements, and the envy invoked by these daily encounters. My wardrobe is bursting and yet every morning I stand before it and cannot see anything to wear. Credit cards may carry the short-term solution to this image anxiety, yet the real issue lies in the pressures of self-presentation and the mythical belief that in order to succeed, one must purchase the correct attire. This project sees me cataloguing the contents of my wardrobe one item at a time. Identifying my trivial issues with individual materialisms in this manner may be a step closer to identifying an underlying issue that affects not only me, but thousands of other young women struggling to make an impact on an image-obsessed society.
Video
"Self Portrait" Experimental Film
Geckos inspire experimental adhesive
Experimental Beat 2011 Instrumental
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Rebecca Dixon copyright 2011
