Max Neutra
By Loft, March 5th, 2008,in | Comments Off on Max Neutra
Born 1978. Venice Beach, CA
Max is known for his “delightfully twisted” aesthetic and wild live painting shows. Fueled by his fascination with the physiological psychology of the creative act, he believes that artistic processes while informed by science, ultimately come from the unconscious limbic system of the brain and are mysterious. “The subject is just an excuse to paint the line. It’s the line itself that speaks, and it always speaks the truth.”
His first solo exhibition was at age 6. It was at this show that he premiered “Mouse in a House” and “Man Peeing While Playing The Drum”. At age seven, his family moved from Pasadena, CA to a desolate shack in the middle of the dessert near Santa Fe, NM. Over the years, and under the influence of his father’s collection of R. Crumb comics, Max developed a habit of drawing as an escape from the realities of unfamiliar surroundings.
After Graduating from the Academy of Communication Arts and Technology (NM) in 1997, Max received his bachelors degree in the Sound Arts program at Expression Center for New Media (CA) in 2000. Continuing the theme of his education, Max composed electronic music in his closet while paying off his school loans by working as an Audio/Video Technician at the Four Seasons in San Francisco, and then at Warner Music Group in Los Angeles. It was only recently (2005) that he began to question and explore the true value and function of all the drawings in the margins of his meeting notes.
Today Max lives in Los Angeles, CA. After experiencing what he describes as a “true epiphany”, he dropped everything in order to make as much art as possible.
“I have always done what I want to do, but this is the first time I am doing what I feel like I am supposed to do. There is a big difference. Doing what you want gives you a sense of freedom. It makes you feel like you are getting away with something, but doing what you are supposed to do makes you fell like you are living up to your part in the universal order.”
Max describes his work as “Cold, still rooms where very human acts of passion and angst took place, leaving stains on the wallpaper. You might be able to piece together what happened from the clues left behind, but only I know what really happened. I wasn’t merely a witness, I was the provocateur, and I get to keep the experiences, you can have the pictures.”
* Giclee Prints available, 20″ x 16″, $120 unframed, $150 framed
2008
– 2/26/08 Live Painting, Paper Trails, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
– 2/23/08 Skulls And Banners, Solid Gallery One, Silver Lake, CA
– 2/16/08 Live Painting-Ultraluxx, The Mountain Bar, Los Angeles, CA
– 2/09/08 Memory: an Exploration of Our Space in Time, The Loft At Liz’s, Los Angeles, CA
– 1/5/08 Live Paintings-The Found Gallery, Silver Lake, CA
2007
-Black Light II, The Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
-Ultraluxx, The Mountain Bar, Los Angeles, CA
-Benefit for Gavin Peters, Alpine Ventura, Ventura, CA
-Fan Art, Echo Curio Gallery, Silver lake, CA
-Voyeur, the Core gallery, Portland Oregon
-Solo Exhibition, Meeting Notes and Bullets From The Gut, Rhino Records, Los Angeles, CA
-Worms Save The Planet, Echo Curio gallery, Silver Lake, CA
-Cannibal Flower, Infusion Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
-Tweak Bird, Los Angeles, CA
-Damemas, Brooklyn, NY
2006
-Reception Part 3, Echo Curio, Silver Lake, CA
-Cannibal Flower, Infusion Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
