People as Plants

This series of six portraits explores family through botanical forms, using plants as stand-ins for lived relationships, memory, and care. Each drawing represents a member of Hixson’s family, rendered not through physical likeness, but through the emotional and psychological qualities that define them. The plants chosen were gifted to Hixson by each individual, forming a shared language of exchange, growth, and presence.

Working across a range of materials including charcoal, pen and ink, acrylic, gouache, watercolor, and cut paper, Hixson allows medium and process to mirror the character of each subject. While the methods vary, the series is unified through consistent composition, a shared scale of 18 × 24 inches, and a limited palette of red, green, and black. These formal constraints bind the works together as a family unit, allowing difference to emerge through gesture, material, and emotional tone rather than surface detail.

The act of making each portrait functioned as a form of sustained attention and care. Hixson approached every drawing as an intimate exchange, reflecting on shared histories, patterns of communication, and the ways guidance, protection, and love are offered within a family. In works such as Cut Away, the physical act of removal becomes a metaphor for illness and survival, while in To Decay, looping pen and ink marks trace the cycling thoughts of Alzheimer’s disease, honoring the interior experience of memory in flux. Other portraits reflect siblings who offer clarity, honesty, freedom, and emotional refuge, each translated through the natural logic of plant life.

Together, the series serves as an intimate archive of connection. By translating family members into living forms, Hixson preserves their presence across distance, illness, and time. These drawings are not only representations, but acts of care, holding space for vulnerability, memory, and the quiet labor of maintaining meaningful relationships.