Unravel

A.P. 6/6

As Gerhard Schoeman writes in a 2001 exhibition publication, "Dixie's work is rooted in both the concrete and fantastical experience of the South African landscape--inner and outer--placing her work within a tradition of landscape art that is particular to the Eastern Cape." That she draws the connection between her personal history and identity and the land beneath her feet is further evidenced in a self-portrait entitled, "Unravel." Dixie created this work at the invitation of artist, critic and curator, Clive van den Berg. He requested the artist to create a self-portrait that fit within certain dimensions. This was her response. And once again in this linocut and etching, the artist has recreated the details of her own image set against the defining landscape of the Eastern Cape. One is left to wonder if what is unraveling is the history woven into this landscape, or the artist's own sense of herself in relation to place.

Linocut and etching on paper of a standing female figure in a dark wrapper pulling a shade over a landscape with mountains and rivers.

Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue - From the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, November 7, 2014-January 24, 2016

Kreamer, Christine Mullen and Adrienne L. Childs (eds). 2014. Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue from the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, pp. 204-205, 215, no. 99, pl. 114.

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