NYAB Event - Max Jansons "Frewheelin"

Max Jansons "Frewheelin"

Graham

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Jansons’ intimately scaled, carefully constructed canvases draw on, as he describes, “the beach, the ocean, unapologetic nostalgia, pottery and plants, hippies, surfers and kooks, sunny days, boobs, slow livin’…FREEWHEELIN’. My desire to live in a world made up of these things led me to make this new group of paintings. I made them because they are things I want to see, to experience, and to surround myself with. They are my reflections and interpretations of life in California.” While Jansons’ subjects openly and lovingly reference popular culture, his refined method making, small linen canvases, tacked with nails cut in small batches in England and primed in lead, draw from historical traditions. Jansons hand mixes, in small batches pigments derived from extinct earth sources. His choice of materials is deliberate as is his direct painting method. Jansons believes paintings "have a certain energy that can't be duplicated. The brushstrokes build the image like bricks in a building, they are dependent on one another, their balance crucial to how the painting unfolds. Though they can appear as if they were done in minutes, I work on one small section for hours, until the brush work feels right." Jansons reinvigorates his traditional methods by engaging his "hand-made" process in a rose colored look back on contemporary Californian culture.

Born in New York City in 1974 Jansons received his BFA from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1996 and his MFA from Columbia University in 1998. Jansons currently lives and works in Santa Monica, California.

[Image: Max Jansons "Fantasizing About Florists" (2011) Oil on linen 19 x 14 in.]