Jane Dickson makes paintings and drawings that explore the psychogeography of American culture. Her practice was developed in the crucible of New York’s late-seventies counterculture, where she participated in artist collectives.
Lyric Theatre is from the artist’s series on billboard signage which dates to the beginning of her career in New York: between 1978 and 1983, she designed and animated Times Square’s first digital billboard, the Spectacolor, while also living in the then-gritty neighbourhood. Looking down from the window of her apartment or from the third floor of One Times Square, where she programmed the billboard, Dickson photographed the bustling intersection below, using the images as source material for paintings. In the forty-five years since, she has continued to paint from her photographs of street scenes, demolition derbies, circuses, suburban homes, and other charged social environments taken in cities across America.
JANE DICKSON (AMERICAN, b. 1952)
acrylic on canvas
Acquired in 2023
