Halima Washington-Dixon

Halima Washington-Dixon is an American-born oil painter living in Sudbury, Suffolk, known for thickly worked impasto landscapes of the East Anglian countryside and still lifes of garden flowers.

Born in Los Angeles, she took a BA in Visual Arts and Art History at Occidental College and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. After moving to Atlanta, Georgia, she taught painting to adults at art centres there, and in 2011 she came to Colchester, England and later settled near Sudbury.

Influenced by the Post-Impressionists, her work puts the emphasis on light, colour and texture, and most of her smaller paintings are completed in a single sitting so that they stay fresh and immediate. Halima has collectors from all over the UK, as well as America, Canada and Australia. She has been represented by a number of galleries, including the Mill Tye Gallery in Sudbury, the Morningside Gallery in Edinburgh and Cambridge Contemporary Art (Cambridge). She also teaches local painting classes and is happy to accept visits to her home studio.

She works mostly from her garden studio in Sudbury, painting almost every day and occasionally working en plein air in the countryside near her home. She has painted professionally since 2006, working with a mix of brush and palette knife, and in recent years has been drawn above all to landscape, inspired by expansive countryside views, dramatic Suffolk skies and the rich colours of summer.

Her still lifes grow out of foraged floral arrangements and follow the seasons, with blossoms set against complementing backgrounds and fruit and pattern used as contrast. The flowers come from local independent growers and from her mother-in-law's garden.