Max Werner was born in Ghent, Belgium and he studied at the Slade School of Art in London. He taught printmaking in the UK and worked in the Art House Gallery in Buenos Aires, Argentina and currently resides in the USA.
Often triggered by a simple observation of his immediate environment such as landscapes, Max Werner seems to love the challenge of an unusual composition, and the capturing of the diversity of light in the various places he travels to. Werner generally paints in his studio a few weeks after having seen his subject matter, using sketches and photos, but never relying on recorded reality. The end result is an image which evokes a mood, and which conveys what the artist felt at the time, rather than a faithful representation of the place described. This in turn invites the viewer to reflect on what it expresses. Perhaps to get a deeper understanding of his work, it helps to know that Magritte is one of Werner’s favourite artists, “ There is something about Magritte’s surrealism especially, which I find very interesting. This one step away from reality, a juxtaposition of things which sometimes also occurs in real life. When it does and you pay attention to it, it creates a situation that can be in turn funny quirky, or absurd. For me this is a constant source of inspiration.”
