Fragments
Maxwell Starshine
Artist Bio
Maxwell Starshine is a queer multi-media artist based out of the Ottawa area. A perennial student, they are in their final year at St Lawrence College, completing three programs simultaneously; Visual & Creative Arts - Fine Arts, General Arts and Science, and Child and Youth Care. Maxwell is also completing a printmaking apprenticeship with Larry Thompson of Greyweathers Press in Merrickville, Ontario. They have worked at the Marianne van Silfhout Gallery and From Here To Infinity Gallery, in addition to holding various creative positions within St Lawrence College. Maxwell has had their photography published in “Delicious Recipes for the Home Chef”, a cookbook by Dave Cybulski, and accompanying various articles in the magazine Canadian Antiques and Vintage.
Maxwell cites many Canadian artists as influential to them. Among those artists are close friends and mentors Larry Thompson and Holly Dean, printmakers Jeff Macklin, and George and Michelle Walker, contemporaries Shea Tzekakis and Amrit Brar, and more internationally known artists such as Lights Poxleitner-Bokan and Shelagh Keeley. Maxwell also finds tremendous inspiration in the scientific photographic materials released by NASA.
In their recently completed multi-media series ‘the road so far’ containing various mixed media assemblages, Maxwell explores themes relating to their identity as a transgender person and communicating what their experience has been both internally and externally. Their current series ‘celestial machinations’ focuses on the concept of ‘space’ and it’s myriad forms; interstellar, personal, and the space between thoughts and people. Once again, Maxwell seeks to connect with others by inviting the onlooker into their world, this time using installations and assemblages to transform the very space in which the work is viewed.
Artist Statement
I am fascinated and perplexed in equal measure by humans, and I use my art as a means of connection and communication, a language learned in fits and starts throughout my life. Nomadic by circumstance and experience, I moved from place to place as a child and find myself called to wander as an adult, which leads me to appreciate fleeting moments, feelings, and people. These longings to understand and experience are what drive my art.
My artwork is at its strongest when I rely on my intuition and my emotion to guide me. I ‘feel’ what I want to create, and I pick the language with which to communicate that feeling. When showing the world from my vantage point, I rely on photography and video. Paint tends to be the domain of raw emotion, and int his medium I am drawn to expressionism and abstraction. My trademark colours are the combination of aqua or turquoise and magenta, and the rest of my palette tends toward shades of blues.
My first art was storytelling, and I have been collecting ways to tell stories every since. From reading, I moved to writing, and then photography and when I found myself on the edge of the world of visual arts, I dove right in. My art has grown from inside to out; it functions as a means of self-exploration, self-expression, and connection. I collect mediums with which to work, striving not for perfection in any one art form but to arm myself with as many tools as I feel necessary to tell my stories.
