About

Max Cahn’s paintings invite a sense of reality through perspective and traces of representation, yet over time they are unsettled as physical brush marks and thick wet-on-wet impastos that are sticky and viscous break through any sense of realism.

Form and the painted mark remain vital, as does the expressive capacity of the gestural mark. With the use of subtle references to the visible world, abstracted shapes and marks express a more complex and potent subjective experience; yet they always somehow remain allusive with no certainties of interpretation.

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

Starting points for the paintings can come from a sub-conscious doodle or rough drawing; however, more often than not they begin straight on the canvas allowing the image to unfold and realise itself.

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.

Max Cahn (b.1978) lives and works in Cardiff. Having graduated from Falmouth College of arts (BA) in 2000 and Bath Spa University (MFA) 2007, his work has been exhibited throughout the UK, Europe and beyond.

Bio