Facing Time: 50 Years

This poignant exhibition brings together the work of long-time friends and acclaimed artists Geoff Dixon and Euan MacLeod, exploring themes of connection, loss, and resilience through portraiture and ecological reflection.

Geoff Dixon, a Cairns-based artist originally from Bluff, New Zealand, presents paintings that continue his longstanding concern with the fragility of the natural world. Using birds on the verge of extinction as symbolic portraits of humanity, Dixon reflects on the tension between our impulse to preserve and our role in ecological decline.

Euan MacLeod, also born in New Zealand and now based in Sydney, contributes works from his ongoing series Facing Time: Portraits of Geoff. Created during the COVID-19 lockdown, these daily paintings emerge from FaceTime calls between the two friends. What begins as spontaneous chats evolves into a powerful visual diary—MacLeod paints a portrait of Dixon each day, capturing both the intimacy and the emotional distance of virtual connection. Each painting features a large image of Geoff, with a smaller self-portrait of the artist included in the corner.

Facing Time: 50 Years is anchored by this series and complemented by additional portraits by MacLeod and recent works by Dixon. Together, the exhibition offers a moving meditation on friendship, grief, technology, and the enduring human need for connection—across time, space, and species.