A Palette of Emotions

Expressing yourself fully proves challenging in the sense that our biggest enemy often comes in the form of ourselves. Christian Dixon’s paintings are meant to show the viewer a part of themselves that they’ve never seen. His work questions any sense of self, allowing for various perceptions and beliefs found around the world. And it shows how viewing a piece may help people may see themselves through various religious and spiritual symbolism.

At just 25 years old, Dixon is a fully self-taught artist, and recently made the semifinals for the triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, a Smithsonian-sponsored event. After graduating high school in Springfield, Missouri, his goal was to go to art school, but he didn’t believe he was disciplined enough or had sufficient monetary means, and he rather joined the Air Force and continued drawing and painting on his own. He’s been stationed in Oklahoma City for the past six years, where he lives with his wife and two dogs, and has built a clientbase in order to make money and support his family.

“I think the most important thing about being an artist is that you are the artist, that the work you create, nobody else in the whole world can create, and you’re gonna be the best person in doing that,” says Dixon.

Having that unique perspective allows Dixon to paint from his emotions, thoughts, and feelings, which allows him to be confident in the fact that his work is truly his own. Dixon’s view of himself is fluid and constantly changing. He doesn’t like to give himself any label or title, even as a painter. Everything he’s doing is fleeting and he feels as though he’ll be onto the next thing in no time.

“I think art has really helped me to understand myself,” says Dixon. “Almost in a way that dreaming helps organize the events of the day, painting has helped to give myself illustrations and depictions of concepts that I try to grasp. For example, the concept of universal unity.”

Art offers Dixon an outlet to compartmentalize daily struggles and experiences in his day-to-day life. As an adult, Dixon struggles with self-doubt and self-worth, something not unique just to him. He often strives to find a childlike, creative headspace. Achieving this state of mind results in a flow state, creating art while living through all of his struggles. Dixon says,

“it requires a lot of effort to stop doubting yourself and realize that you have everything you’ll ever need.”

Those self-imposed obstacles have been a challenge for Dixon, but he has continued to paint in his spiritual style and gain a following.

When Dixon first started creating art, he was directly inspired by Kehinde Wiley, an African-American painter known for his naturalistic paintings of black people, most famously President Barack Obama’s portrait. Dixon felt a connection with the portraits, and started to make some of his own. As Dixon grew in his art, he channeled art that was similar to Wiley’s, which led to Dixon feeling as though he was somewhat copying Wiley, and left him questioning his skill as an artist altogether. But he soon discovered his unique style of self-expression through painting, entering a space where he could create things he was proud of, thereby building a deeper, stronger sense of self. Dixon wants people to connect with his art, even subconsciously. They don’t need to know why they connect with it, if it’s something that appeals to a large audience, then Dixon knows he’s helping build community.

“This is something I’m still trying to do because I feel like I’m still a very young artist,” says Dixon, but he is using various forms of symbolism and mythology to do so.

Dixon uses texts, such as The Upanishads, art he has connected with on a personal level, to dive in deeper to larger philosophical ideas. There are 108 different stories within The Upanishads, and in his most recent work he has created an illustration for one of those 108. Dixon says, “in this one it’s about a boy who’s going around to different beings on the earth, pretty much searching for God and then finding God in all of them. So I’m creating paintings that serve each of these different beings.”

Dixon pulls his inspiration from his own spiritual growth, through his own experiences. His awakens the senses, deepening the experience by encouraging viewers to make their own meaning.

In the Upanishads piece there are four different beings, with the text describing a bull, a diving bird, a swan, and fire, and the beings teach the boy to search for God and certain elements of the world, and Dixon is transmuting this idea with his own perception. Dixon says, “like my current one of the diving bird, I’m doing one of the great blue heron and I’m just pretty much putting all of my self expression, but that taking this big idea and just like turning an image into it or turning it into an image so I’m sticking to what the text says, but 90 percent of the things are my own mind.”

Pushing through self-made boundaries is a challenge for each of us and having a connection with others through the struggle is where happiness resides. Art is a transmission of something greater than the individual and each artist is an instrument. All of us connect to art through our senses and our own experiences. Creating art about something Dixon connects with brings him that creative joy he’s looking for.

“One of my big goals right now with the artwork that I’m currently creating is to reach people on almost an individual and emotional level,” says Dixon. “Artwork that people can connect with for sure.”