MAX WHITE
A CELEBRATION OF LANDSCAPES
I want this show to feel like a celebration of landscapes. I've been painting memories of places I hold close captured in my chosen medium of oils. The work spans from the Cornish coast, to the Surrey Hills. Combining techniques in a mix of plein air and studio based painting, the show will explore the relationship between the three pillars I consider to be most important in painting. The subject, the abstract quality of paint on a surface, and my emotional influence on both.
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Max White (b 1998) is a Surrey-based contemporary landscape painter. His work draws inspiration from the 19th-century naturalists but aims to celebrate the abstract quality of all schools of painting via his designs and surface quality. His paintings aim to capture balance, colour harmony, and mood across all subjects. His candid compositions of urban, marine, and natural scenes are carefully chosen en plein air and either are painted on-site or in the studio over long periods of reflection on the subject. His process rests on his understanding of technical narrativity to generate emotionally compelling pictures. Painting in oils in and out of studio, his paintings are always a result of carefully collected colour information and emotional reflection whilst painting.
As an artist, he has exhibited across numerous societies including the NEAC, ROI, RSMA, Chelsea Arts Society and RBA, and is a member of the Wapping Group of Artists. Over the past year, he has won numerous awards including the Next Generation award at the RSMA in 2022, the Green and Stone Prize for a painting from Chelsea Arts Society in 2022, the Emerging Artist Prize from the ROI in 2021, and the Winsor and Newton Young artist award at the ROI 2021. He has recently produced a public collection of works for the Stafford Hotel in St James.
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This collection of work is primarily based on the British Landscape, but also explores the city of London, and my intimate surroundings at home. I have always been inspired by the impressionists and their ability to capture light and tone on location, however I have recently found myself increasingly interested in the romanticists. Their ability to take visual information and organise it into a more emotionally compelling composition has inspired me to experiment. Many of the works in this exhibition are a result of this new ethos to working. I have longed to find a way to alter my working process to be able to make more deliberate artistic decisions, and studying artists such as Fred Cuming, Tim Allen Lawson, and Isaac Levitan has given me the confidence to slow down, and think more carefully about composition, texture, and colour when I’m painting. The work in this exhibition was created in both the studio and en plein-air, but is always the result of direct observation of a subject from life. I paint in oils due to the medium’s ability to capture the many abstract qualities of nature. I have recently embraced using new tools to manipulate the paint, I like to add layers of texture using the palette knife, or to draw into wet paint with charcoal or the end of a brush, I believe this captures another aspect of the abstract nature of reality. To me, this work is my most reflective that I have produced.
Max White, 2024
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Education
BSC - Architecture - Cardiff University
IB Diploma - Sevenoaks School
Solo Exhibitions
Shapes and Colours of Spring - 2023 -Highgate Contemporary Art
Island Fine Arts - October 2022
“First Impressions” - 2022 - Highgate Contemporary Art
“Inspiration in the time of Covid” – 2020 – (Online) Grierson Galleries
“SOLO SHOW” – 2017 – Grierson Gallery Sevenoaks, Kent
Group Exhibitions
Hampstead Art Society - 2023
Green And Stone 95th Anniversary Exhibition 2022
Chelsea In Colour - 2022 - 340 Kings Road
Chelsea Art Society Open - 2022 - 2023 Chelsea Old Town Hall
Green & Stone Summer Exhibition 2021 - 2022 - 2023 - The gallery at Green and Stone
“Royal Society of Marine Artists Exhibition” - 2022 - 2023 - Mall Galleries
“Royal Institute of oil painters exhibition 2021 - 2022 - 2023 - Mall Galleries
“Art For Youth London 2021” - Mall Galleries
“New English Art Club Annual Exhibition” 2021 - 2022 -2023 - Mall Galleries
“Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition 2021” - Mall Galleries
“Ranleigh Arts Summer Show” - 2021 - Duo Show with Svetlana Cameron
“The Wilderness Exhibition” - 2021 - St Pancras New Church, London
“OUTSIDE EDGE” – 2019 – Grierson Gallery Cranbrook, Kent
“10x10 Drawing the City” - 2019 - The RIBA - london
“Big Three” – 2018 – Grierson Gallery Sevenoaks, Kent
“London” - 2017 - Grierson Gallery Sevenoaks, Kent
Grierson Gallery Grand Opening Exhibition - 2016 - Grierson Gallery - Sevenoaks, Kent
Sevenoaks School 2016 IB Art Exhibition – 2016 Oxo Tower, London
Awards and Nominations
Second Prize, Winsor and Newton Young Artist Prize, ROI 2023
The Royal Society of Marine Artists New Generation Award 2022
The Green And Stone Prize, CAS 2022
Third Prize, Winsor and Newton Young Artist Prize, ROI 2021
Royal Institute of Oil Painters Emerging Artist Prize 2021
Tunbridge Wells arts festival Student artist award (Finalist) - 2016
