Information

Artist Statement

 

Max Cahn’s paintings invite a sense of reality through perspective and traces of representation, yet over time can become unsettled, as physical brush marks and thick wet-on-wet impastos that are sticky and viscous break through any sense of realism, allowing no certainties of interpretation.

 

Suggestions of the everyday and familiar are stripped back to the barest point of cognition, becoming easily misconstrued. As the image builds, we are left with visual echoes of things found in the real world; some objects seem curiously familiar, while others remain more elusive.

 

Half-discerned recollections and associations, fragments of thoughts, fleeting sensations and emotions; these are the source material. Trawling the memory banks of his own existence, Max Cahn endeavours to give tangible form to intangible experience; to make real and communicable, that which is ephemeral and private.

 

We are encouraged to project ourselves into the work; with open spaces, incomplete forms, gaps or breaches that invite the viewer to step in. Leaving us to wrestle with certain components, just as the painter wrestled with the same elements when making the work.

portrait

Max Cahn (B. 1978) Birmingham, England

 

Education:

1996 – 1997 – Bournville College of Arts (Foundation Diploma)

1997 – 2000 – Falmouth College of Arts (BA Hons)

2006 – 2007 – Bath Spa University (MFA)

Group Exhibitions:

2024 – 2024 Beep Painting Biennial, Swansea

2022 – 2022 Beep Painting Biennial, Swansea

2022 – The Art of The Table, Made Gallery, Cardiff

2021 – Thing Worlds, Contemporary British Painting at Spot Korin, Kyoto

2020 – 2020 Beep Painting Biennial, Swansea

2019 – GIFC Velvet Ropes series, House of Vans, London

2018 – Beep Painting Biennial, Swansea

2018 – Skewed Pop Up Exhibition, Cardiff

2016 – WWOOMAFAABSU, G11, OXO Tower Wharf, London

2015 – Summer Open, Oriel Q, Narbeth, Pembrokeshire

2013 – Exeter Contemporary Open 2013, Phoenix Gallery, Exeter (Audience Choice Award Winner)

2012 – Surface disturbances, Searchers Gallery, Bristol

2012 – Birth, PAK Gallery, Gistel, Belgium

2012 – WW Solo Award 2012, WW Gallery, London

2011 – Marmite Painting Prize, The Nunnery, London

2011 – Marmite Painting Prize,Lanchester Gallery Projects, Coventry

2010 – Marmite Painting Prize, Central Art Gallery, Tameside Manchester

2010 – Mijn Wereld-My World, Sint-Pieters Getekend, Brugge, Belgium

2009 – Sint-Pieters Getekend 09, Sint-Pieters Getekend, Brugge, Belgium

2008 – Shortlisted for stage 2 of John Moores 25

2008 – The Post Graduate Contemporary Art Show,The Atkinson Gallery

2006 – Hide & Seek, Mivart Studios, Bristol

2004 – Carmen Torrallardona Gallery, Andorra la vella, Andorra

2003 – Annual Sound and Art Festival, Alicante, Spain

 

Solo Exhibitions:

2015 – Oriel Myrddin Gallery, Back Wall Series

2015 – Cafe Bar Exeter Pheonix Gallery

2003 – Chringuito Ipanema, Playa Arenales, Spain

2002 – Loft Gallery, Alicante, Spain

2001 – Fleart Gallery, Brixton London

 

Catalogues:

2010 – The Marmite Painting Prize

2010 – Mijn Wereld-My World

 

Articles:

2013 – Express and Echo, Contest draws top art talent

2004 – El Periodico, Max Cahn el pintor viatger