the first ever solo exhibition by Maximillian Hembrow.
Max won our Open Call competition back in 2018 having come straight from art school, since then his work has gone from strength to strength, gaining in popularity with 508 Gallery’s client base.
Born in Oxfordshire in 1994, Max studied at Bournemouth University, Max uses music as his muse, through rhythm, motion and depth, using complimentary and contrasting colours brought together to enhance each other, creating a sense of vibrancy and intensity. “My theory behind my painting is a result of my visualisation of music. Very much in the same way that Kandinsky did. Certain songs reflected in the emotion of specific paintings which bring me joy”. Max infuses his work with musical notes. For example, role of the lute in some the work is to illustrate sound and harmony; the tone of the lute almost immediately disappears once it has been strummed, a metaphor for the painting being plucked from a moment in time.
Max’s works are vibrant, portraying classical methods of painting in his work while reinventing traditional styles and techniques of the figure in space. Particular attention is paid to anatomical construction of parts and symmetry in line. His recent works have been inspired by his interest in Cubism, following his time spent in Paris, looking into abstraction and observation, finding inspiration in the works of Picasso, Braque, Cezanne and Matisse. This latest body of work, appropriating Cubism into the consciousness of the contemporary art world, depicts how the natural human form distorted through media. Some of his new works are comprised of found materials and collage, such as his great-grandmother’s music scores which date back to the late 18th century.
