About

Sarah Dixon Studio
With a background in Biology, and a childhood in many places and cultures, I have later come to work as an artist over many years.  Since a very young age I have been involved in creating communities of action: mutual aid, ecological sustenance, creative heritage. I am driven by a desire for equity and freedom: a living balance of interests across power polarities in human and non-human realms.
Sarah Dixon Creative Coaching
sarah dixon (she/her)

Biography

Mattering Life Residency - rituals in the biology lab

Sarah Dixon is a social practice artist. Her work explores new ways of relating between the human and the beyond-human. 

A neurodivergent polymath, she studied Biology at UCL (1998), worked in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Hindu Kush, and has studied art forms from Orthodox icon painting to Corporate Design. Experiencing autoimmune disease has informed her practice further. 

Based in Stroud, UK, Sarah holds an MA in Performance: Society (Distinction) from Central Saint Martins, UAL 2024. She is a Priestess of Cuda and Dedicant of Hecate (2024), and a Relational Dynamics 1st Coach (2019).

 

Dixon’s work has been shown at the ICA, Oblong Gallery, QUAD Derby, SkyTV, and on a cyberbus in Moscow, amongst other places. She was shortlisted for a Jerwood Bursary Award and performed for New York’s Grace Exhibition Space.

In 2024 she was selected for the SURGE III commission (2024) to work with WEISS medical engineers at UCL to make a film about severe pregnancy sickness (shown in photo), and was also selected for the Mattering Life Residency working in the UCL Nick Lane laboratory to investigate magical practice in relation to lab research into the origins of life.

Her painting practice explores intuitive expression of archetypal Goddess figures from across time and place, using found earth materials and spring water to make egg tempera works on handmade paper. 100 of these paintings formed an installation in 2022 at Lansdown Gallery, Stroud, where visitors were immersed in the many faces of Goddess and a majority of the paintings were sold.

She is a co-founder of The Women’s Art Activation System (WAAS), making performance art and working with people going through pregnancy and birth. As part of the SAFEDI commission she and The WAAS partner Sharon Bennett created The Milky Way, a sticker-game for National Gallery visitors in London.  In 2024 The WAAS are running a National Lottery Heritage funded project with Stroud’s Museum in the Park to explore histories of birth.

She also is a founding Director of Stroud Goddess Temple and a supporter of Stroud Against Racism, with a focus on Black maternal health.

sarah dixon

artist cv

Grants, Commissions & Awards

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Artist Residencies

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  • Mattering Life – Residency at Central Saint Martins with UCL and Institue of Technology, Japan examining life’s origins from an interdisciplinary perspective
  • ‘In Winter’s Depths’ – Hawkwood/Frances W Reckitt Arts Trust – 5-day Residency, Hawkwood, Stroud  January 2022
  • UNIDEE 2020 ‘Embedded Arts in a Post-Pandemic Future‘ –  Biella, Italy (Remote/Virtual) October-November 2020
  • Art of Libraries – Residency at Gloucester Library (‘20 Games for Gloucester Library’) August 2017
  • Artist Residency in Motherhood – Lenka Clayton’s Model – March 2016 – March 2017

 

 

 

Exhibitions, Talks & Performances

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  • The Baby Makers: Making History – The Museum in the Park, Stroud, November 2024
  • SURGE III – Artist Commission “Gut Feelings” – Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins, London
  • “How a River Can Teach Us About Citizenship” – Conference Presentation, Arts & Citizenship, Northern School for Contemporary Dance, January 2024
  • 100 Goddesses – Egg Tempera Paintings & Installation – Solo Show, Lansdown Gallery, July 2022
  • The Bureau for the Validation of Art – WAAS – SVA “But is it Art?”
    Solo show 2022, Offbeat Festival Oxford June 2021+  Grace Exhibition
    Space, New York 2020 + Social Works?: Live, Manchester 2019 + Art Licks
    London 2018
  • Future Collect Conference: Handle With Care – WAAS presenting – Manchester Art Gallery and Iniva, November 2021
  • Meltdown –  The Silver Spoons Collective group show, The Storey, Lancaster 2021
  • Agony Arts – WAAS – Online participatory performances 2020
  • Social Works? Live – WAAS – Manchester – The Bureau for the Validation of Art performed 3 Validations as part of this Axisweb event 2019
  • Motherhood & Metamorphosis – Group Show, Lansdown Gallery, Stroud November 2017
  • Nasty Women –Auction, Marshall Rooms, Stroud October 2017 (sold ‘An Unpublishable Rant’)
  • Mother Bunting in Mom Egg Review – Featured Show, US 2017
  • Mother Bunting – Desperate Artwives Collective Show 5th Edition, Lower Marsh, London January 2017

Education

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  • MA Performance: Society (Distinction), Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London 2024
  • Kin of Cuda Priestess of the Cotswolds, Stroud Goddess Temple – dedicated March 2024
  • Relational Dynamic Coach – Culture At Work & Relational Dynamics 1st – 2019
  • EdExcel Corporate Design – London College of Printing – 2004
  • Biology BSc Hons 2 (i) University College London 1998
 
 
Contacts

Get in touch

Mon – Thu 10:00-17:00; Fri 10:00-13:00