
ARTIST BIO
@maxberry
Born 1987 Katherine NT, Australia.
Lives and works Sydney, Australia.
China Heights Gallery, Sydney Australia
Galeria My Name is Lolita Art, Madrid, Spain
Images are interchangeable with ideas and symbols, a merging of perception and meaning. Each are subject to the malleable nature of memory and time; rendering real objects as felt experience with a hidden cache of meaning. As we observe and make sense of the world, we collect a recording of our experience – a data set of images and artefacts. These curiosities compel our attention and often produce new meanings that unfold with time.
Berry often presents new work that serves as a guide for thinking. The pieces are simple tools, vectors for meaning. They walk with you in exploring universal dichotomies of birth and death, love and loneliness, anxiety and wonder. He speaks our shared language of symbols and he draws on our collective memory.
Paintings focus on observation and harness the power of belief to charge the mundane with the sublime. Yet also, a warning of the opposite, the power of disbelief to strip the world of meaning and connection. The work asks the audience to build their own meaning and ask their own questions. To find the seeds of possibility.
Berry’s work links with unexpected convergence, the chaos and complexity of our world. Where paintings become an offering of time; time in which to stimulate memory and prompt new ideas.
Solo Exhibitions:
2024 Wormholes, China Heights gallery, Sydney
2024 Mana, Galleria My Name Is Lolita Art, Madrid
2023 Images & Artefacts, China Heights Gallery, Sydney
2022 Good spell, Gallery Auot, Beirut, Lebanon
2022 Cave of Bone, Lone Goat Gallery, Byron Bay
2021 Maps, China Heights gallery, Sydney
2021 Energy is Residual, Galeria My Name is Lolita Art, Madrid, Spain
2020 Monument, Broken Hill Regional Gallery, Broken Hill
2020 Landscapes, China Heights, Sydney
2019 Idyll Structures, Backwoods Gallery, Melbourne
2019 Vessel, The Slow, Bali
2018 Seeing Things, China Heights Gallery Sydney
2017 Vehicle, Lane Cove Gallery, Sydney
2016 A Return to Slow, China Heights Gallery, Sydney.
2015 Domain, Spectrum Now, Sydney.
2014 The Inwardness of Place, China Heights Gallery, Sydney.
2013 Which Way Home, China Heights Gallery, Sydney
2012 All Things Lost, Nine Lives Gallery, Brisbane.
2011 Passenger, Harrison Galleries, Sydney.
2010 A Search For Ground in Higher Places, Oh Really Gallery, Sydney
Group Exhibitions:
2024 Focal Point, Long Story Short, New York
2023 Modern Abyss, Nothing At All, Hong Kong
2021 Contemporary Landscape Perspective, Wangaratta Regional Gallery,
Wangaratta
2019 Rude Assembly ‘PartFour’, Taylor Sq. Project Space, Sydney
2019 Rude Assembly ‘PartThree’, Burton st Project Space, Sydney
2015 Works on Paper, China Heights Gallery, Sydney
2018 Rude Assembly ‘Part Two’, Campbell st Project Space, Sydney
2018 Rude Assembly ‘Part One’, Campbell st, Sydney
2018 Serve the People ‘Group Show’, Milk Gallery, New York City
2017 Works on Paper, China Heights Gallery, Sydney
2015 Works on Paper, China Heights Gallery, Sydney
Selected Awards & Prizes:
2022 Finalist in Grace Cossington Smith Art Prize, Wahroonga
2020 Finalist Pro Hart Outback Art Prize, Broken Hill
2019 Finalist Basil Sellers Art Prize, Basil Sellers Exhibition Centre, Moruya
2018 Finalist William Fletcher Foundation Scholarship
2018 Finalist Salon des Refusés, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney
2017 Finalist Pro Hart Outback Art Prize, Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery
2016 Finalist William Fletcher Foundation Scholarship
2016 Finalist Pro Hart Outback art prize, Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery
2015 Awarded Lloyd Rees memorial Youth Art Award, Lane Cove Gallery
2014 Finalist Wynne landscape prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
2013 Selection Salon de refuse’ S.H. Ervin Gallery
2012 Finalist Blake Prize, S.H. Ervin Gallery
2010 Awarded Artstart grant, Australian Arts Council
Residencies:
2019 Bundanon Trust, AUS.
2018 Skopelos Foundation for the Arts, GR.
2018 Nelimarkka Museum, FI.
2015 Cill Rialaig Art Center, IRE.