Hand-tinted Photos Take You Way Back
Mary Dixon's Haunting Art Recalls Another Period in Time
Three young bikini-clad women frolic ankle deep in ocean water, their hands joined, their hair dancing in the wind.
Another woman, covered only by her own long tresses, lies at the water's edge, gorgeous and golden.
The eye behind the camera seeks out familiar Maritime scenes, yet embues them with mythical significance - the three teens cavorting in the Atlantic as earthly stand-ins for the Three Graces; the nude woman a Nova Scotian Aphrodite.
Dreamscapes, hand-coloured photography by Mary Dixon, is on display at the new ViewPoint Gallery until Feb. 14, 2001.
South Shore native
The Bridgewater resident brings a fresh eye to her South Shore surroundings, a place where she grew up and returned to as an adult.
The absence—through university and her first career as a lawyer—gave a her a renewed appreciation for its unspoiled beauty and charm, which she captures lovingly in these photographs. The people who frolic on the white beaches of the seashore are her focus, with forays to the midway of the South Shore Exhibition and quaint storefronts of LaHave, Lunenburg Co.
"I guess I'm wistful about the summers of my youth," says Dixon, who works as a professional photographer with her husband, Eric Hayes. "It's about growing older and looking back."
Dixon looks back with rose-coloured glasses, or rather, using infra-red black-and-white film. It gives her pictures a surreal quality, making bright blue skies moody and dark for example, and adding a ghostly sheen to skin.
The spooky effect is further enhanced by the prints' sepia tones and soft colours applied with photo oils and pencils.
A few of the photographs feature the same girls, two sisters that Dixon tagged along behind on their trip to the beach. The girls are completely engaging—in one the sisters playfully model their towels using the Risser's Beach boardwalk near Petite Riviere as their catwalk; in another, the two peek over the edge of the boardwalk in wonder at what lies below.
The pictures slide me back through the years, a reminder of the joy of being young, uninhibited and curious.
Dixon will give a talk on Dreamscapes next Sunday at 3 p.m. ViewPoint Gallery is a new co-op gallery in Halifax devoted to showing the works of photographers and printmakers and is well worth a visit. ViewPoint is at 2050 Gottingen St. and is open Saturdays and Sundays, from 1 to 5 p.m.