Max Mueller Painter

When you are painting it is so hard to know exactly what it is you are trying to ‘get at’. You are in some sort of pursuit of a wisdom that rattles and breaks when you get close.

But in each painting, I think about the world and myself and recall those moments when you breathe in and feel special. It is a poem that you recite to yourself, each time a little different and new but still so familiar, drenched with the memory of every picture you have seen and done.

I was probably, in some way, destined to spend my days thinking about pictures. I have always been enraptured by the feeling of painting. In school, art was the only subject that hummed with significance when other pursuits left me unsatisfied.

Tasmania, as the only place I’ve ever really known, weaves itself into my work in ways which I am not quite sure. Maybe now I take its charms for granted, but I can’t imagine painting with a feeling other than here.

The ‘world outside’ calls to me as it calls to everyone, but I have the feeling that my whole practice would cease to exist without the essence of this place.