max werner
Born in Ghent Belgium, currently residing in the USA.Studied Fine Art at the Byam Shaw School of Art, London, and the Slade School of Art, University College London.Later taught printmaking in both schools until 1990 when he set up his own etching workshop in London.In 1997 Max Werner moved to Argentina, and until 2003 worked with Art House Gallery in Buenos Aires.Traveling extensively across the different regions of Argentina, he produced a body of work consisting in its majority of large landscapes painted on canvas, although a lot of those landscapes contain observations of the various rural activities of those regions, such as cattle auctions, gauchos and their horses, etc…
In 2003, he moved to the USA , there he reverted back to a more familiar way of working. Max Werner in fact, uses quite a wide range of different ideas. Their common thread is that they all tell a story.Often triggered by simple observation of his immediate environment such as landscapes, Max Werner seems to love the challenge of an unusual composition, and the capturing of the diversity of light in the various places he travels to.”His paintings are rarely painted on the spot, but instead painted in his studio a few weeks later, with the help of many sketches and photos, but not sticking to the recorded reality. The end result is an image which evokes a mood, and which conveys what the artist felt at the time, rather than a faithful representation of the place described. This in turn invites the viewer to reflect.
Perhaps to understand his work better, it is interesting to note that one of Werner’s favourite artist is Magritte: “ There is something about Magritte’s surrealism especially, which I find very interesting. This one step away from reality, a juxtaposition of things which sometimes also occurs in real life. When it does and you pay attention to it, it creates a situation that can be in turn funny quirky, or absurd. For me this is a constant source of inspiration.”