Elsabe Johnson Dixon

ARTIST STATEMENT: Elsabé Johnson Dixon
Using new media, which often include live insects or insect detritus, opens up a powerful ecological dialogue in a postmodern world. Using research, fieldwork, and audience engagement, art objects produced in context can be witness to environmental change, disruption and actual physical data. All plant, organic, and artificial substances today reveal the DNA of our postmodern existence. Data, and lifecycle systems, pollutants, as well as disruptors, can all be discovered while working with a specific material at a specific time period in history. The work I produce in collaboration with silkworms, bees and now the Spotted Lanternfly, will provide ways of seeing – first and foremost- data and information about our environment at this time.
I investigate the potential of object making or interactive environments, to record and hold specific data regarding disruptive events such as the invasive Spotted Lanternfly (which entered the United States in 2014 and systematically wreaks havoc on local agricultural food industries). The Spotted Lanternfly – Zones of Syncopation Project involved over 400 people, 12 community partners and offered a sustainable audience involvement. The only material used...

Duke University, Fast Track non-profit Certification, 2022
George Mason University, MFA, New Media, 2012
VCU, Richmond (Arlington Satellite), 2009 – Coursework Art History
Manhattan College NYC 2003 – Coursework Art History
Corcoran School of Art, Washington DC 2003 – Coursework Art History
Averett University, BA, Fine Art, 1992

January 7 – Jan 29, 2023, PULSE 23, Notable Hillyer Advisory Exhibition: Helen Frederick, Renée Stout, and Tom Wolff, and current members, Joan Belmar, Nikki Brugnoli, Anna U Davis, Elsabe Dixon, Cianne Fragione, Pat Goslee, Laurel Lukaszewski, Cory Oberndorfer, John Paradiso, and Amber Robles-Gordon.

January 5 – September 28, 2021, Wanderlove – A Stitch In Time (Outdoor Two Mile Covid19 friendly Yarn-bombing – community sourced, 25 community partners including Goodwill of the Valleys), Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, Location: Historical River District, Danville, VA. – self curated, served 6007 people.

May 7 – June 17, 2021, Insecta: Eco Dialogues on Productivity, Limitations and Disruptions (Solo retrospective – curated by Brooke Marcey & Kim Soerenson), Riverview ArtSpace, Lynchburg VA

January 4 – March 25, 2021, Spotted Lanternfly – Zones of Syncopation Installation, Lehigh Valley Commonwealth Campus, Pennsylvania (Curator Ann Lalick)

January 18 – December 28, 2019, Spotted Lanternfly - Zones of Syncopation, Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania (Curator Tamryn McDermot)

October 23 –December 28, 2018, TRANSFORMATION, VisArt Center, Rockville MD (Laura Roulet Curator).
November 9- December 23, 2017 Nature As Prototype, McL...