Tangerine Dream is a startling piece of work. Picture, if you will, a large glass bowl, more than two feet across. The centre is a solar burst of brightest lemon yellow, and the rim a deep opaque purple with a margin of orange and honeycomb yellow rectangles. Coming a little closer, you notice that the central yellow section is not opaque at all – beneath a clear, transparent surface you see a texture of regular yellow honeycomb sections. If you didn't already know it, you realize that you are looking at a work in glass, and glass of a high order.

There are joyous pieces in this exhibition, and playful pieces, and subtle pieces. Tetela Weft, a wall piece, shows a complex woven pattern of glass straws, like a fraying rug, once again below its clear surface. Another Grand Day Out is a transparent, coolamon shaped bowl with a complex below-surface texture, in which can be seen a series of small fish or tadpole forms in precious metal leaf, all swimming upstream.

Ian Dixon has an unusual mastery of glass fusion – a technique of laminating two or more pieces of glass, in a kiln – that allows him to produce a watery feeling of surface and depth. He achieves his other main technique, slumping, by placing the piece in the kiln once again, on top of a specially constructed mould, and allowing the heat to settle the glass into the form of the mould.

Neither technique is easy. Coloured and shaped glass has variations in chemistry and mass that make it necessary to control the rate at which things expand and contract as they heat and cool. The slightest mistake can result in the piece cracking and literally falling apart, sometimes days after it leaves the kiln, and each piece is probably the product of many sleepless nights.

I have only seen a comparable degree of technical achievement in the work of Seattle glass blower Dale Chihully, familiar to many Perth people through an exhibition at Scitech some years ago, and one or two pieces in the collection at AGWA.

There are other parallels. The use of woven straws already mentioned can be seen as a direct quote from Chihully, with his fascination for Amerindian baskets and blankets. Dixon showed considerable African and desert Aboriginal design influence four years ago in his only other major exhibition (1), where he was careful not to overstep the bounds of cultural appropriation.

That self-conscious seriousness is now abandoned in favour of a playful, even humorous approach. Many works in this show draw on the design and commercial art of the last fifty years. You may remember a Rolling Stones album cover with a large painted mouth (2). Big-A-Lips reproduces the idea as a three-foot long glass platter with a wide margin in sensuous red. Although the ends are now pointed, I believe that in its early stages the piece had the form of a big ellipse.

This is the same sort of fun that Chihully had when he started making work inspired by ice creams with chocolate sprinkles. However unlike Chihully, who's every piece is brighter than the last, Dixon often shows subtlety and restraint in his use of colour. Late night frenzy, a smaller plate in muted browns, depends entirely on three lurching, dancing little stick figures to raise a smile.

As a painter I am somewhat envious of Ian's mastery of his medium. I am restricted to putting down my thoughts in pigment on a flat surface. Ian's beautiful, multi-surfaced paintings in glass come that much closer to working with pure colour and light.

Dixon's last exhibition established his reputation as a technically excellent craftsman with considerable design skills. This exhibition puts him on the map as artist, already confident with his medium, with plenty to say. I have the feeling he is only just getting into his stride.

(1) Kindred Spirits at the old Craftwest Gallery, curated by Janis Nedela, 1996.
(2) I forget the name of the album. It is not generally known that the QV1 building in St George's Terrace, Perth, also has this form. From the air, I am told, the top of the building is a giant kiss.