Max Naylor, 'Humid Night'

Bristol-based artist Max Naylor (b. 1979) has his studio at Spike Island Studios. Max studied at Falmouth College of Art, Brighton University, and at the Royal Drawing School in London. Alongside his own fine art practice, Max is a tutor at the Royal Drawing School.

Max has completed a number of international residencies including time spent in Los Angeles and Delhi. In 2017 Max won the Discerning Eye Drawing Bursary and in 2016 the Jacksons Painting Prize. He has exhibited widely in the UK and has his work in private collections throughout the world.

Max writes about this work: “The landscapes I paint are invented from a combination of memories and imagined places. I’m interested in creating a kind of parallel universe, a microcosm that is similar to our world but free from the shackles of reality. In these spaces it can be night and day simultaneously, you can stare up at the sky whilst noticing the plants flowering at your feet.

This dreamlike quality is also found in the way the paintings are made, I work instinctively, when things are going well it almost feels like the paintings are making themselves. The work seems to well up from my subconscious and spill onto the surface.

I often paint in ink, a fluid and dynamic medium that suits my process and subject matter. I think of it as a collaboration, I’ve learnt to relinquish some control and let the materials do their own thing to a certain extent.

The works in ink are made quickly, at the same time I’m working on larger oil paintings that take much longer. Working at these different tempos keeps things fresh and exciting for me, with the works in ink continually informing the works in oil.” - Max Naylor, 2023