Maxalice (Max) Serres is a Queer Non-binary painter and sculpture artist living and working in Atlanta, GA. Born in Paris, France in 1989, and raised in the American south. They have shown work in group exhibitions around the southeast including Atlanta Contemporary, Whitespace, Soft Times, Swan Coach House, The Office Miami, Pamplemousse Gallery, Echo Contemporary.
Their practice is informed by Queer ecology, landscape studies, community building, vulnerability, the push and pull of discovering embodiment. Max builds upon their artworks with softness and the belief that they have magical powers they have yet to understand.
Max uses They/them pronouns.
New work available through email and Whitespace Gallery in atlanta. Click HERE.
Artist Statement
Max uses watercolor on raw canvas, textiles, ceramics to create dream-like worlds. These works are metaphors for the dismantling Max practices in their life while taking inspiration from the metaphors hidden within the natural world. The process of coming out as a Queer and non binary led Max to the journey of returning to their childlike joy; a joy Max lost touch with and has been able to reconnect with through their art practice. The works represent the unearthing of their true self. While the persona they felt necessary to assume as an adult disappears, it allows the magic they once tapped into to reappear. The contrast seen through various landscapes, marine-like bodies and abstract shapes represent the push and pull of embodying their own Queerness, building emotional strength, and all the joy and hardships that accompany embodiment. The materials Max uses illuminate the comfort and discomfort that occur as one shows themselves and the world who they really are.
Influences include: geology, activism, Queer liberation, community building, Joy, meditation, love, marine flora and fauna, the oceans, tectonic plates, deep sea exploration.
a place to escape
a playland that nourishes all that is around it
fed by the practice of submerging into one's depths
the depths that want to be unearthed so they can be exposed, fed, and in turn regenerated as new soil
photographs taken by Akilah Callahan & Sam Vaughn