Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 13

Ted Dixon
Self Defense, Abstract painting, acrylic on canvas, warm colors, colorfield

2024

$5,550
£4,128.75
€4,840.64
CA$7,762.38
A$8,666.92
CHF 4,547.44
MX$106,965.16
NOK 57,161.94
SEK 53,485.13
DKK 36,111.97
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

Acrylic on canvas This suite of artworks expands upon Dixon’s unwavering commitment to the possibilities and power of abstraction. Eighteen features recent paintings inspired by his reading of The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, a book developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones. The texts reframe US history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans as central to the national narrative. The contributing writers encompass an array of thinkers—journalists, artists, academics, anthropologists, historians and legal scholars. Thus, the collection provides a rich scholarly picture for reader engagement. The 1619 Project is a Pulitzer Prize winning book published in partnership with The New York Times in 2019. Within this powerful tome, there are 18 essays covering a variety of themes. The topics highlight many aspects of the Black experience in America—including “Punishment,” “Fear,” “Citizenship,” “Self-Defense,” “Church” and “Music.” In this series, Dixon uses these themes as a catalyst for his abstract painting practice. Each painting corresponds to one of the 18 chapters and encapsulates Dixon’s responses to the texts. The paintings are intuitive and aligned with the artist’s life experiences as a Black man, resulting in both emotive translations and emblems reflective on past and present. Dixon creates paintings that connect to place and time. His moods and emotions act as filters in the painting process, resulting in canvases with energetic shapes and striking colors. Dixon especially enjoys combining lines and circles, exploring both visual and thematic tensions and harmonies within the same painting. The artist states that “the most challenging moments of a painting are often the most pleasing.” In this way, the artist is able to craft multilayered compositions that delight the eye and fulfill the viewer’s yearning for complexity and intrigue, while simultaneously expressing a visual interpretation of history. In Eighteen, Dixon crafts, plays and manipulates form, line and color to find where the three fuse. While Dixon’s practice has been influenced by the traditions of Abstract Expressionism, he pushes to create compositions that reflect his personal aesthetics and messages in richly layered acrylic renderings. They are created through a labored process of layering, removing and reworking paint. Dixon’s linear structures are overlaid with circles, ovals, X’s and conical forms. In Eighteen particularly, stripes and stars are inverted and recolored as his reinterpretations of the American flag. Perhaps a result of responding to written histories, in this series Dixon incorporates more representational elements than in previous work. In Punishment viewers see a bloodied figure interpreted through the artist’s Color Field-esque abstraction. Church provides a colorful and homey visage, while darker under layers peek through. His lines are strong, and textures and pigments are the reigning elements. Registers of color and symbolism repeat throughout the series, harkening to ancient traditions of visual storytelling.
  • Creator:
    Ted Dixon
  • Creation Year:
    2024
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 32 in (81.28 cm)Width: 28 in (71.12 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU16814817112

More From This Seller

View All
Music, Abstract painting, acrylic on canvas, colorful, color field
Located in New York, NY
Acrylic on canvas This suite of artworks expands upon Dixon’s unwavering commitment to the possibilities and power of abstraction. Eighteen features recent paintings inspired by his...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Origins, Abstract painting, acrylic on canvas, colorful
Located in New York, NY
Acrylic on canvas This suite of artworks expands upon Dixon’s unwavering commitment to the possibilities and power of abstraction. Eighteen features recent paintings inspired by his...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Healthcare, Abstract painting, acrylic on canvas, colorful, patterns
Located in New York, NY
Acrylic on canvas This suite of artworks expands upon Dixon’s unwavering commitment to the possibilities and power of abstraction. Eighteen features recent paintings inspired by his...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Democracy, Abstract painting, acrylic on canvas, jewel tones, figures
Located in New York, NY
Acrylic on canvas This suite of artworks expands upon Dixon’s unwavering commitment to the possibilities and power of abstraction. Eighteen features recent paintings inspired by his...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Medicine, Abstract painting, acrylic on canvas, dark colors
Located in New York, NY
Acrylic on canvas This suite of artworks expands upon Dixon’s unwavering commitment to the possibilities and power of abstraction. Eighteen features recent paintings inspired by his...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

In A Moment, red, brown, yellow, abstract, painterly, neutrals, dark
Located in New York, NY
Ted Dixon is a Black painter working primarily in abstraction. He writes: "How do we learn to see what we cannot yet see? What are the things that influence our ability to perceive? ...
Category

2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

You May Also Like

Energy Fusion 6, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
By Nestor Toro
Located in Yardley, PA
Acrylic abstract landscape green, purple, yellow, pink colors expressive contrasting color field painting. Textured and layered with fluid translucent acrylics. Signed and ready to h...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Scripting - rich, colorful, lyrical, gestural abstract, acrylic on canvas
By Alice Teichert
Located in Bloomfield, ON
Calligraphic lines visible, almost forensically, through a burnished pool of layered bronze-orange acrylic continue in a secretive glyphic at the foot of the square canvas. The whole...
Category

2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Canvas, Acrylic

Blocked Resoling, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
By Nestor Toro
Located in Yardley, PA
Vibrant orange and yellow green combination and color blocking. A piece full of motion, texture and depth. Golden acrylics and gloss enamel finish. This piece is inspired by one of m...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Fusion Particles, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
By Nestor Toro
Located in Yardley, PA
Fusion Particles textured and layered with dark and bright color blending and fusing all the shades together. Signed, ready to hang. ORIGINAL FINE ABSTRACTS - ONE OF A KIND! I o...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

It Doesn't Just Happen By Chance., Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
By Nestor Toro
Located in Yardley, PA
Inspired bright abstract colorfield, acrylic painting layered, texture. Subtle magenta tones, red, light pink and a touch of yellow. Lots layers spontaneous and Contemplative. Each o...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Every Which Way, Abstract Oil Painting
Located in San Francisco, CA

Artist Comments
Dorothy Gaziano builds layers of orange and cream over deep blues and black using oil paint and cold wax. The interplay of light and dark draws the viewer in,...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil