Meet Max Yawney | Artist painter and photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Max Yawney and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Max, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
The balance doesn’t really exist, I’m an artist and a photographer, every minute is contributing to the work I produce. The work and lived life have become more fluidly connected over time. In my twenties I was figuring a way forward both aesthetically in my art work and financially. In my thirties I had a good idea about both and was able to connect the art works with some understanding of the art world and earning money. Since my thirties , the aesthetic aspect has become syncopated with my approach to art making, thinking and time spent.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The work I’ve been producing for 28 years now, involves creating a poetic, non narrative situation prepared for a viewer. I’m presenting two artifacts- paintings , photographs and or sculptures in situ with one another . The pieces presented are unrelated except that they have been situated with one another in a considered and intuitive manner so as to yield a poetic situation. This leaves an open and unending experience of deconstruction for the viewer.. I’m really happy with the degree of refinement the work has been developing. It’s a never ending project for me, that is continually fed by daily existence and perceptual experiences.

It’s been a real focused body of work and it continues , that I think is the key to the work developing , staying focused and continuing. The idea of difference is at the core of these works, currently there is discussion and real action being taken to address access to greater diversity. I believe that if you can see and understand the diversity in everything around us, you can understand the concept of diversity in terms of all diverse populations, entities, cultures, personalities and political views, and that all are entangled and dependent upon each other. It is a beautiful web we all weave if you stand back and really look at it as an archeologist might.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
When friends do visit my city, where they are from , dictates where we go and what we do. I’m living in New York City , and have a studio barn in Goildsboro ,PA. Friends from Switzerland for example seem to enjoy getting out to the country side to see how average Americans live , so I’ll take them to PA to see some local sites, coal mines, horse ranch, local pubs etc.. and meet neighbors over there . American friends typically like to go to museums , see architecture, galleries, and restaurants, especially in Chinatown.

My favorite advice for visitors to New York City , is to take the Staten Island Ferry at 4pm from Manhattan and return as the sun is setting. It’s an amazing and free experience, passing by the Statue of Liberty and the birds and the smell of the sea, all the while the lights are coming on in the city at sunset it’s quite a show..

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Well, it’s hardly ever one point of contact in life , but there are several people along the way. Early on, a conversation I had about a spot of paint on the floor with fellow artist James Marshall triggered a flood gate of thinking that still persists today and that was in 1987, he mentioned understanding the whole of existence in that spot of paint on the floor, it was an idea . The work I do today is rooted in that idea. While in Graduate school at Long Island University CWPost campus, my art history professor/ museum curator Marilyn Goldstein quipped that ‘archeologists don’t assume anything -they use practical evidence to observe the given artifacts’. That idea has tremendous ramifications for looking at artworks today.

There have been many inspiring artists that I’ve been around over the years, we have continuing insightful dialogue, including sculptor Dejan Pejovic, artist Patrick Todd, artist Kevin Stapp , artist Dieter Kuhn, artist Kevin Laverty , and artist /art dealer David Goldstein., artist Michael Pribich, artist Esperanza Cortes, artist John Moore and my wife -designer Natasha Jen.

Website: www.maxyawney.com

Instagram: #maxyawney100

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Image Credits
All photos by Max Yawney