Interview with Artist Max Talley
12/1/17
12/1/17
1. What feelings are you trying to evoke in “The Soft Explosion of Fall”?
A mixture of feelings. Autumn brings incredible colors to the trees in the Southwestern mountains, so there is a joyous feeling of infinite creative possibilities. However, that is mixed with the reality that the leaves and trees are dying, so the ecstatic moment needs to be savored because it is fleeting. I don't know if I believe in rebirth or reincarnation, but I sometimes wish humans would die every fall, then be reborn in the spring like trees. It might give us firmer deadlines to achieve things of worth and also realize we are all in transition from birth to death. That could give us more patience with annoying narcissists, and more appreciation for the truly special people around us.
2. What is the best advice you have ever been given as an artist?
My first teacher at the Art Students League in NYC told me (a close paraphrasing): "Don't change your style. You have a wild imagination and an odd way of representing things. You need to master drawing, perspective, and blending color techniques, and also get much thicker with your paint, but no matter how many people tell you to, do not change your style. That is what sets you apart."
3. If you could ask an artist to paint you (either present or past), who would it be and why?
Frida Kahlo would be one. I love surrealist art, and her work hovers somewhere between magical realism, folk art, and surrealism.
When I stare into one of her amazing self-portraits, I feel drugged and drunk when I'm stone-cold sober. Intoxicating art is the best.
However, a portrait by Van Gogh might be even better. I'm not always comfortable with myself in reality, but I could live quite happily with a Van Gogh-style face and all of his soft flowing lines etched around my head and creating patterns on my shirt.
*Discover more of Max Talley's art at http://maxdevoetalley.com/
A mixture of feelings. Autumn brings incredible colors to the trees in the Southwestern mountains, so there is a joyous feeling of infinite creative possibilities. However, that is mixed with the reality that the leaves and trees are dying, so the ecstatic moment needs to be savored because it is fleeting. I don't know if I believe in rebirth or reincarnation, but I sometimes wish humans would die every fall, then be reborn in the spring like trees. It might give us firmer deadlines to achieve things of worth and also realize we are all in transition from birth to death. That could give us more patience with annoying narcissists, and more appreciation for the truly special people around us.
2. What is the best advice you have ever been given as an artist?
My first teacher at the Art Students League in NYC told me (a close paraphrasing): "Don't change your style. You have a wild imagination and an odd way of representing things. You need to master drawing, perspective, and blending color techniques, and also get much thicker with your paint, but no matter how many people tell you to, do not change your style. That is what sets you apart."
3. If you could ask an artist to paint you (either present or past), who would it be and why?
Frida Kahlo would be one. I love surrealist art, and her work hovers somewhere between magical realism, folk art, and surrealism.
When I stare into one of her amazing self-portraits, I feel drugged and drunk when I'm stone-cold sober. Intoxicating art is the best.
However, a portrait by Van Gogh might be even better. I'm not always comfortable with myself in reality, but I could live quite happily with a Van Gogh-style face and all of his soft flowing lines etched around my head and creating patterns on my shirt.
*Discover more of Max Talley's art at http://maxdevoetalley.com/