Sebastian Gladstone is thrilled to present a solo project by gallery-artist Magnus Maxine at the 20th edition of NADA Miami at Ice Palace Studios. Magnus Maxine is a craft-based conceptual artist whose practice addresses trauma, oppression, and labor as they relate to personal and collective experiences. In this new body of work, Maxine’s practice uses banal materials and laborious-repetitive gestures to reappropriate current world events into sublime and meditative patterns. The artist explores ideas of femininity, motherhood, and healing through the deconstruction of materials, and the reconstruction of a new and revitalized vision. All of these patterned paintings act as studies for quilts, a major keystone for the artist’s practice. Quilts have historically operated within the domestic space of the feminine and present a multitude of allegories for the labor of women, motherhood, and gender norms.
In this new series. Maxine uses a newspaper that reports on a major transition in her personal life as the base for ten new paintings. The specific details of the event are less important than the physical transformation these works represent. By covering the surface of the paper, the artist gains full control of the narrative and replaces a few lines of text with a celebratory and beautiful vision for her personal future. Through her meditative practice and brided patterns, the series is an embodiment of the transformative power of craft, and the artist's personal confrontation with trauma, rebirth and a renewed sense of power within her own life.
Maxine’s visual language assumes a unique and introspective perspective that is ambitiously conversational with her historical counterparts such as Charles Gaines, Agnes Martin, and James Castle . The tactile nature of the paintings oscillate between painting and sculpture, landing somewhere in between. This dichotomy of flat and dimensional, rough and smooth, adds another nuanced quality to the work enhancing the viewing experience. Maxine presented a solo exhibition at Sebastian Gladstone in fall of 2021, and will present her Sophomore exhibition in our new Hollywood location in fall of 2023.
