By CULLEN VIANCOURT ‘18
Few students represent the proverbial artistic spirit like Max Fisher, a Junior here at Saint Ignatius High School. Ever since he was a young boy, Max has been surrounded by art. He grew up frequenting the Cleveland Museum of Art and being surrounded by family members who are professional artists. Max says that there was never really a lightbulb moment as to when he knew he wanted to become an artist; rather, the immediate immersion he has had since birth has made that eventuality always apparent to him.
Today, Max’s artistic efforts have not gone unnoticed. He has accomplished many impressive feats such as being one of the first juniors to ever take the AP Art History class, having multiple media art installations at the school’s art show, and even having his own work featured in a professional art gallery. Max himself is proud of his achievements, saying that it is “cool for a 16 year old to accomplish something like this.”
Max initially started his art career in painting, specifically, realistic, Rembrandt-like scenes. However, more recently, Max has gotten into abstract painting. Upon being asked, somewhat tactfully, if he switched to abstract painting styles because he wasn’t able to properly execute the exact style of realistic paintings, Max responded with a genial laugh, informing the inquirer that his skill was not the impediment of such style of paintings. And as anyone could see from the images, he is right.
Max says that the true reason he has gone into the more free-form styles is because “I find myself in artwork when it’s more abstract.” Spoken like a true starving artist.
Max’s specialty is large scale paintings, and he has recently been incorporating 3D aspects into his works. Much like it sounds, 3D aspects of painting are ways of layering paint, or using topographical media to give a physical texture to a piece. He is trying to broaden his horizons and include sculpting in his repertoire, and doing 3D art is the perfect way to broaden the gap between the two media.
Max says that one of his fascinations with sculpting, especially as a painter, is the ability to use perspective and media to heavily influence the perception of any given piece.
While on the topic of sculpting, Max is one of the first students to try out the new program Google Tilt. The program is so new that not even he knows how to properly use it yet. According to Max, all he could say was that he can do some very interesting and manipulative things using Google Tilt that he could not do anywhere else. The best aspect of all of this is that Max still maintains such a friendly and inviting atmosphere. So if one wanted to talk to a truly precocious artist, than Max is the man.
