Max Thomson’s arts background began at Wanganui Technical College where he excelled in painting. After moving to Auckland, he was a professional musician for four years, before moving into photography, which was a successful career, spanning twenty-four years. Throughout this time, Max produced personal portfolios of photography – flowers, trees, landscapes – and their relationship to light – and these perspectives have become an integral element in his paintings. He is now painting full time and has been exhibiting for fifteen years. ‘Into The Blue’ the last show at the now closed Black Asterisk Gallery – was in 2018. Since then, his work has been available through Tessuti.
Max Thomson’s paintings evoke a tranquillity, a feeling we are looking into an area of the garden we have not noticed before. Moody, painterly landscapes of shrubs, trees, grasses, and pathways around Devonport. The format or structure of each painting is suggestive, ominous hidden things maybe around the corner. Max uses heavily applied texture brush marks and rich finishes; he defines strong shadow and texture by using deep violets and contrasting ochres. A painted traveller’s narrative of surreal shaped trees, bulbous shrubs and winding pathways found around every corner when exploring our parks and gardens in our local area.
