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Max Manning              
 
Max Manning is a Houston area artist who recently moved to Texas, after living and working in Kansas City, Missouri. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Two Dimensional Studies from Bowling Green State University in 2011 and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati in 2014. Max has exhibited work nationally and internationally and is currently represented by TW Fine Art in Brisbane, Australia. His paintings have been shown in The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati Ohio, Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, The Lawndale Art Center in Houston, Texas, Espacio 20/20 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Le Practicable Espace D’ Exposition in Rennes, France. His work has been featured in Maake Magaine, Fresh Paint Magazine, and Studio Visit Magazine.
 
Artist Statement
 
The artist of today lives in a both cumbersome and liberating realm of infinite resource. Indeed the possibility of originality has long been declared dead. Does that mean the artist shall forfeit their pursuit of creating work that could expand the ever-elastic waistband of art? Or should they stubbornly persist, along the way borrowing and stealing the cloaks of past styles and the shields of isms? 
 
The aim of my work is to be retro-contemporary but not retrograde. That is to say, that, in my own naiveté, I am optimistic to encounter a dead horse along the road and beat it back to life. Once beaten back to life, I may attempt to relate these isms to contemporary human experience. Hopefully, this yields allegorical images that stand upon the timeline of art history with one foot on the past and the other on the present. I approach the history of abstract painting through a cubist lens, exploring paint as object matter and painting as subject matter.  
 
Metaphorically the image plane could be viewed as an immovable object, and though my mind is far from an unstoppable force, it is my hope that when these two meet, the material evidence of this incident will be an image-object of artistic merit. My process is a pendulous alteration between automatism and analysis. The canvas, however comprised, will absorb explosions of raw expression as well as moments of highly controlled focus.
 
My work is a culmination of stolen ideas, isms, and a great appreciation for the history of painting. Combinations of starkly contrasting visual elements melt together to form images of imperfection. This anarchic visual dialect that I have chosen to adopt speaks to the disorientation one can experience from today’s constant flood of technological over-stimulation.
 
Bearing in mind the privilege and miracle of this highly developed technological age in which we exist, I am interested in the thinning line between the artificial and the real. The plastic pictures I create are expressions of my own interpretation of the struggle that exists between the visceral, the primal and the artificiality of contemporary human experience.
 
 
Artist C.V.
 
Academic Degrees
2014     Master of Fine Arts, University of Cincinnati (DAAP), Cincinnati, Ohio
2011     Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio      Selected
 
Solo Exhibitions
2017   TBD, TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia (forthcoming)
2015    In Tongues, EN EM Art Space, Sacramento, California
2014    Now Made with Real Paint, No Future Projects (online),
            http://www.nofutureprojects.com/
2014    Soul-Rocket, Pipeline Artist Space, Cincinnati, Ohio
2013   Uberplasticist Exhibition #1, Pipeline Artist Space, Cincinnati, Ohio
2011   Screening Reality: Erotomania (Paintings and Drawings by Max Manning, Bowen Thompson Student Union, Bowling Green, Ohio
 
Selected Two-Person and Group Exhibitions
2017     TBD, James May Gallery, St. Algoma, Wisconsin (forthcoming)
2017     TBD, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, California (forthcoming)
2017     Intimates, Skylab Gallery, Columbus Ohio (forthcoming)
2016     Funkytown, Urbano, Berkeley, California
2016   The Big Show 2016, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, Texas
2016     Small Works, Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
2016     From Here, Fluorescent Gallery, Knoxville, Tennessee  
2016     Construct, 337 Project Space, Grand Rapids, Michigan
2015   Be, Mist Gallery, mistgallery.com – Online Exhibition
2015   More or Less, Front/ Space, Kansas City, Missouri
2015   Le Cours de Chose, Le Praticable Espace D’Exposition, Rennes, France
2015     At the Sound of The Bell: Break Away, Pear Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio 
2015     Chill, Zen, Funk and Twang, Curating Contemporary – Online Exhibition
2014     Sugar Rush, En Em Art Space, Sacramento, California
2014     New Abstraction: 3 Select, Metropol is Collective, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
2014     Extraordinary Flecks and Things Butting Up, LOHIOH, Cincinnati, Ohio
2014   By The Pleasure of Doing, Espacio 20/20, San Juan, Puerto Rico
2014   divisible: please, actually, introspective, Divisible Project Space, Dayton, Ohio
2014     Business Casual, collaborative show with Jessica Simorte, Neon Heater Gallery,
             Findlay, Ohio
2014   LUSH, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
2014   Fiction, University of Dayton Galleries, Dayton, Ohio
2013     Fresh Paint Showcase, Media Wall at Commerce Square, Philadelphia,
             Pennsylvania
2013     Pop-Up Art, Niehoff Design Studio, Cincinnati, Ohio
2013     Members Small Works Exhibition, Roy G Biv Gallery, Columbus, Ohio
2013     Wintery Mix, Rock Paper Scissors, Cincinnati, Ohio
2013     Crosspollination, Collaborative show with Jessica Simorte, 840 Gallery,
             Cincinnati, Ohio
2013     SweetySalty SculptureFunk, Collaborative show with Jessica Simorte, Pipeline
             Artist Space, Cincinnati, Ohio  
2013     All Fall Down, Meyers Gallery, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio
 
2013     Modern Makers & Fernside Benefit Art Auction, Niehoff Urban Studio, Cincinnati,
             Ohio
2013     Renewal, Drift Studios, Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin
2013     Paint + Poems by Manning and Swiger, Pipeline Artist Space, Cincinnati, Ohio
2012   Yes, We Art Open, Scioto-Morgens Complex, Cincinnati, Ohio
2012   Overture, LeSo Gallery, Toledo, Ohio
2012     Post Blank-It, 840 Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio
2012     For the Love of Paint, Flow Art Space, Minneapolis, Minnesota
2012     Abstract Life, K.A.S Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky
2011     Toledo Artomatic 419!, Toledo, Ohio
2011     Bowling Green State University Annual BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition, Bowling
             Green, Ohio
2010     Bowling Green State University Annual Undergraduate Art Exhibition, Bowling
             Green, Ohio
2010     BGSU Arts Extravaganza, 2DAA Exhibition, Bowling Green, Ohio
2010     Black Swamp Arts Festival, 2DAA Exhibition, Black Swamp Arts Festival,
             Bowling Green, Ohio
2010     President’s Suite Invitational Exhibition, Bowen Thompson Student Union,
             Bowling Green, Ohio
2009     BGSU Arts Extravaganza, 2DAA Exhibition, Bowling Green, Ohio
2009     Black Swamp Arts Festival, 2DAA Exhibition, Black Swamp Arts Festival,
             Bowling Green, Ohio
 
Bibliography
2016     Maake Magazine Issue 3, Winter 2016
2016     Interview: “Max Manning”, http://www.maakemagazine.com/max-manning
2016     Review: “CABARET DUIMSTRA: CONSTRUCT AT 337 PROJECT SPACE”,
 http://art-hack.org/2016/01/07/cabaret-duimstra-construct-at-337-project-space/,
 Arthack.org, January 2016
2015     Podcast: Studio Break Podcast, http://StudioBreak.com/max-manning/
2015     Interview: “Mist Gallery Artist Interviews”, http://www.mistgallery.com/bl
             og/2015/10/27/interview-with-max-manning
2015     Podcast: Final/ Friday Podcast, http://finalfridaypodcast.com/maxmanning/
2015     Feature: Looking at Painting, http://lookingatpainting.co.uk/uncategorized/max-
 manning/
2014   Review: “DECEMBER 2013: MEMBERS’ SMALL WORKS EXHIBITION”,
http://roygbivgallery.org/2014/01/11/december-2013-members-small-works-exhibition/
2013     Fresh Paint Magazine, Issue No. 2, Fall 2013
2012     Studio Visit Magazine, The Open Studios Press, Boston, Massachusetts,
 Juror: Jonathan Green, Independent Curator, Former Director of the
 Hunterdon Museum, Clinton, NJ. Winter Edition
2012     Studio Visit Magazine, The Open Studios Press, Boston, Massachusetts
Juror: Trevor Richardson, Director of Herter Gallery, University of   Massachusetts. Spring Edition
 


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