The Artist
"I'm a ball of hair on legs - kind of like a paintbrush" - Maxi
I studied Visual Arts Practice at BSA in Mullumbimby and have exhibited my work in multiple galleries in the northern rivers of New South Wales as well as in Brisbane. Now my work resides in Europe, the US, and of course many places around Australia.
The precursor to my life as an artist was a diverse and colourful career in graphic, product design, photography, animation & video editing. My parents are designers and artists in architecture and fine arts.
Product and graphic design skills developed at Griffith University led me to working with large companies such as Boeing, EGR Group & Lainge O'Rourke. All highly technical and dream jobs for a young man designing body kits for cars, industrial graphics to compliment engineered urban planning & infrastructure systems, and 3D technical diagrams for commercial jet aircraft.
Of course the graphic design clients and employment have been varied as well, working in fashion, engineering, products, sound & video, then artist & designer consultation. This is a multi-specialised career I've experienced thanks to the Bachelor of Design Studies (BDesSt) course I completed at Griffith University in 2009. It's complex and integrated - a bit like my eclectic approach to fine arts application.
My mixed media approach to art is still evolving with my latest development to upgrade my photography & videography skills, investing in photographic gear to document my work without the added overheads that come with outsourcing a photographer.
There's always new and exciting developments I am working on to support and promote other artists in the arts community, with an artist documentary series in the making which is completely funded, filmed and edited by me. Check out the Blog page for all the updates.
Bio
Maximilian (Maxi) Lyons is an #Australian artist interested in finding vibrant beauty amongst the chaos of everyday life. He describes himself as a physical painter, using expressive brush-strokes to fill his canvases with an interplay of light and colour. With a background in graphic & product design he plans some of his artworks digitally before committing them to paint. Influences include the art of Jean-Michel Basquait, Salvador Dali, as well as the drip paintings and layering of Jackson Pollock.
Maxi has a unique style which constitutes an eclectic mix of realism, expressionism, abstract and illustrative forms. His landscapes are visionary interpretations drawn from his own worldly travels, yet transformed by a vivid imagination, taking viewers on a deep journey into his utopic universe. His figurative palettes use dynamic bold lines and juxtaposition of perspective, tone and colour to accentuate the subject.
His free-flowing approach has produced some richly diverse and visually captivating works, ranging from tranquil scenes of earthly natural splendour, to intense cosmic-like expressive pieces, and strikingly challenging abstractions sometimes bordering on the eerie. The end result invariably possesses a blend of influences, but always highly original.