This Vancouver artist counts Versace, The Weeknd among his fans

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Andy Dixon is the yin to his own yang.

On the one hand, the visual artist is still the 12-year-old rebellious punk rock kid who started playing in bands in North Vancouver. And, on the other hand, he is happily at home as a very successful, Los Angeles-based visual artist who likes luxury eyewear and bespoke suits.

“It’s a duality that I think is really funny,” said Dixon from his downtown L.A. studio. “I like exploring the comedy around both growing up as an anti-sellout punk kid and also liking the finer stuff.”

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Dixon is known for his colourful, large canvases that mix modern images of things like supercars and country club sports with reimagined classic Renaissance-era works of bountiful tables and entitled scenes. The result is often a cheerful, cheeky comment on privilege and wealth.

But, to be clear, he is neither out to eat the rich nor elevate the affluent. Instead, he’s having fun with both.

“The way he can look at a little bit of a Dutch still life and then execute it in a reduced palette of simplified areas of colour, it’s very impressive,” said Kathy Grayson, owner of New York contemporary art gallery The Hole, which hosted Dixon’s first N.Y. solo show last year.

“I think he loves the history of art, loves visual culture, and wants to spin an amazing tune out of all of it and share it with the public. The work is smart without being a know-it-all; it leaves it open and celebrates more than lectures.”

That last part is important to Dixon, who isn’t interested in telling viewers of his work what to think.

“I’m really afraid of beating people over the head,” said Dixon, who has been based in L.A. for the last six years. “I want you to not quite know if I am painting a Lamborghini because I love Lamborghinis, or because it’s dumb, because it is a silly, useless object that is way too expensive. Because it’s kind of both. Both of those things exist in my head, and they are about equal measure … And also, the painting of Lamborghini itself becomes — not quite as expensive — but an equally sort of useless, expensive object, which I think is really funny.”

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Dixon’s paintings offer up a distinct brand of thoughtful whimsy. With a palette populated with brilliant teals, bright reds and yellows, and plenty of pinks, the images give off 1980s surfer culture vibes.

“Everything that was cool when I was between 12 and 18 was, like, Ocean Pacific T-shirts, surfing, the sea,” said Dixon, now 45. “I just love colour and bright, sunny California colours. I think I am leaning into it even more now that I live here. I think my newest work really embraces that colour palette … It just speaks to me.”

Dixon started out wanting to be a musician. He played guitar and sang in bands throughout his youth, notably D.B.S. and The Red Light Sting.

He founded the indie label Ache Records and became a graphic artist who, back in the day, did album covers for his own bands and others including Hot, Hot Heat, The Blood Brothers, and Said the Whale, which earned him a Juno nomination for the cover of the band’s album, Hawaii.

“I was always into art when I was doing the music stuff. I really did feel quite pulled in two directions,” said Dixon. “I think music is just so immediate and appeals to a young person. It’s so obviously emotional that it just gets you really fast, whereas art is maybe a bit of a slower burn.

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“You know you watch a Motley Crue video and you are, ‘My God, this is insane.’ Looking at a painting, you are, ‘Oh well, that’s cool.’ But it doesn’t feel the same,” added Dixon. “It’s a roundabout way to say it, but I think young Andy would be extremely excited that I get to do this for a living. I’m still just drawing pictures, basically.”

These days, Dixon is a sought-after artist selling pieces in the five-digit range and has had solo shows in top private galleries in L.A., Bangkok, Hong Kong, London, England, and N.Y. His celebrity fans and buyers include Mindy Kaling and The Weeknd. And he has done work with Versace.

The relationship began when the Italian luxury brand reached out to him when it was looking for artwork to stage in its Milan headquarters around a presentation of the Versace furniture line for the 2019 Solane de Mobile (the Art Basel of the design).

“I said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but it’s so weird, I am literally making an 11-foot Versace shirt sculpture right now. I haven’t shown anybody yet,’ ” Dixon said about the out-of-the-blue phone call he got from a Versace representative.

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Dixon’s large piece made the journey to the Versace headquarters. And Dixon soon discovered this partnership was a good fit.

“I think that level of irony exists even in the top echelon of the luxury brands,” said Dixon, who met with Donatella Versace and top executives. “Versace does have this kind of punk thing. It is a little bit tongue-in-cheek. It was really fun working with them, and they totally got it.”

Dixon went on to create patterns that the fashion brand used for about 50 designs, including shirts, scarves and denim pants.

Other collabs of note for Dixon include a large, full-wall tryptic for Jacques Marie Mage, the luxury eyeglass company favoured by the likes of Brad Pitt and Jeff Goldblum. The work will be in the company’s Chiltern St. London store, which is set to open in February 2025.

“I was always a big fan of his neoclassical modernized style,” said Jerome Mage, owner/founder/designer of Jacques Marie Mage, who discovered Dixon’s work on Instagram in 2015. “I love the anachronistic type of work he produces, which is very similar to the work I am doing with Jacques Marie Mage where we have very vintage inspiration, but it’s modernized to live in today’s world and to speak to a newer generation.”

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Dixon’s other recent projects include curating the group show How it’s Going, on now until Jan. 15, at the 193 Gallery in Paris. The show marks Dixon’s first time working as a curator.

“It’s really fun. It’s kind of like DJing or something,” said Dixon, who has a piece in the show. “We are trying to put together a story through premade blocks.”

Also new is a series of limited-edition silk scarves for the American luxury brand Moutoniére.

For Dixon, keeping busy is his default — and a way to keep anxiety at bay.

“Should I be mediating and stuff? I try all that stuff and force myself to take days off,” said Dixon, who points to the beach as a Zen zone for him. “But honestly, when I’m in the studio and I’m working on something close up, and that moment when I step a few steps back to look at what I’ve just done — that’s just my favourite feeling in the world.”

10 B.C. artists to watch

B.C. has a long history of producing bold-type visual artists. With an eye on the future, Postmedia News reached out to gallerists, private collectors and popular social-media types to ask them which local artists to keep an eye on.

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Here are their list of the 10 local artists to watch:

Maru Aponte

One look at Vancouver-based Puerto-Rican artist Maru Aponte’s bright, beautiful, observational, slightly abstract landscapes and you’ll be looking to book a holiday in the sun.

Corey Bulpitt

Corey Bulpitt, Haida painter, jeweller, illustrator, wood and argillite carver known as Taakeit Aaya or “Gifted Carver,” is a member of the Naikun Raven clan and comes from a long line of Haida carvers. Rooted in tradition and modern in approach, Vancouver’s Bulpitt experiments with contemporary media and design elements.

Russna Kaur

Vancouver-based Punjabi artist Russna Kaur produces dramatic, large-scale abstract paintings featuring bold colours. Kaur’s art is currently being collected by top public galleries. The artist currently has a solo show, Pierced into the air, the temper and secrets crept in with a cry, on until Jan. 27 at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler.

Les Ramsay

Vancouver artist Les Ramsay takes everyday objects and manipulates them through constructive and deconstructive techniques into works of art that gleam with wonder, while asking the viewer to look at the relationships we have with the things in our lives.

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Jean Paul Langlois

TV and film Westerns, old sci-fi and Saturday morning cartoons are foundational inspirations for Vancouver-based Métis artist Jean Paul Langlois. A lover of large canvases and public murals, Langlois uses oversaturated colours and flat, graphic-like images to reference and dig into the complexity and cultural realities of his own family.

Lauren Brevner

Lauren Brevner is a multidisciplinary artist based in Vancouver who is greatly influenced by her Japanese-Trinidadian heritage. Her powerful portraits of women lean into themes of identity and female representation. With a nod toward traditional Japanese culture and art, Brevner combines oil, acrylic and resin with a collage of Japanese chiyogami, yuzen and washi paper on wooden panels. She has also worked with her partner, James Harry, to create large-scale murals around the Lower Mainland.

James Nexw’Kalus-Xwalacktun Harry

A leader in the contemporary Coast Salish art scene, James Nexw’Kalus-Xwalacktun Harry’s bold, modern designs incorporate elements of metal, light and Coast Salish design as they push traditional boundaries toward a modern discussion of cultural understanding and reconciliation.

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Andrew Dadson

The Vancouver-based multidisciplinary artist brings together plants and paint for his large tactile pieces that literally grow out of thick layers of paint that have been moved around the canvas to give the piece a sculptural — you’ll want to touch it — vibe.

Alex Tedlie-Stursberg

The Vancouver multidisciplinary artist and educator works in various mediums, using found objects and natural materials scavenged from the ocean’s edge and the landscape of the city. Detritus and flotsam become parts of beautiful sculptures, tableaus and assemblages in this artist’s hands.

Anne Griffiths

Known for her sophisticated, lively colour palette, Victoria-based abstract painter Anne Griffiths offers a contemporary, feeling-packed twist on our stunning Canadian natural world and landscapes.

Dgee@postmedia.com 

x.com/dana_gee

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