Max Amato is a visual artist, illustrator, graphic designer, and children's book author based in New York City.
Artwork
Max's work spans across industries and mediums, using a combination of analog and digital techniques. He is particularly interested in movement, and the interplay between the two dimensional and three dimensional world, exploring a distinct language of shapes and an approach to form that can seamlessly transition from drawings to sculptures, to 3D rendered compositions, to functional objects.
He looks to explore tensions
and juxtapositions. Figures that are inspired by motion, but are rendered in solid, unmoving materials. Shapes that feel informed by precise geometry, as well as organic spontaneity. Finding the fine line between abstraction and representation. Paintings that feel like sculptures, or sculptures that feel like paintings. Characters that feel like objects, and objects that feel animated with personality.
Common visual themes across the work include abstracting the movement of the human form, material and textural contrasts, and surreal objects and characters. He blends inspiration from his passions in music, sport, and fashion, as well as the vibrancy and chaos of life in New York City.
Bio
Max is originally from Silver Spring, Maryland. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia. After completing his studies, he moved to Brooklyn, where he has been pursuing a multidisciplinary creative career, spanning art, graphic design, illustration, and children's books.
His graphic design and illustration work focuses on dynamic brand identity projects for clients including Nike, Apple, Def Jam Recordings, David Beckham, Electronic Arts, and more. His body of work was named a winner in the Art Director's Club Young Guns competition, a global cross-disciplinary, portfolio-based award that identifies and celebrates today’s vanguard of emerging creatives.
He has written and illustrated multiple children's books, two of which have been published by Scholastic, with two more on the way with Source Books.
Process
Max treats his compositions like sculptures, creating a library of shapes and forms that he can move around and arrange to create dynamic compositions. The individual pieces are cut out of plywood and other materials, treated with paint and textural mediums, and layered together to create the finished works.
A therapeutic, introspective sketchbook practice serves as the backbone and starting point for his work. Max regularly sketches using watercolor as a tool to create loose, expressive drawings that inform his final, precise compositions. His creative process and subject matter is constantly inspired by New York's abundance of eclectic characters, cultural experiences in the form of music, sport, and fashion, as well as the relationship between urban and natural artifacts.
