Humor me for a moment. Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Now, I know that’s a lyric from “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”—but does that sound like an image that existed in the acerbic mind of John Lennon, or the whimsical wonderland of Peter Max’s artwork?
In the 70s Max shuttered his design studio to focus exclusively on painting. One might surmise that another reason was that the style Peter Max Studio popularized had become passe. But Max continues to have large-scale exhibitions of his paintings, and he still does plenty of commercial work. In the past couple decades his art has become both more bold and more conventional. It bounces between sharper, more focused renditions of his trademark style; still lifes and landscapes rendered in bright basic colors; and popular imagery (the Statue of Liberty, Disney characters, Taylor Swift album covers) executed in garish brushwork. This output might seem the least interesting (because of the familiarity of the genre) and most derivative (of Warhol and related pop art) of Max’s oeuvre. But some of his painting and design over the last quarter century is weirdly captivating in an ephemeral manner, subversively channeling dolphin paintings and other creations destined for the shelves of beach-town art shops.
Through Sun 9/7 Road Show Company at Northbrook Court
1202 Northbrook Court, Northbrook 866-900-6699roadshowcompany.com
Artist receptions Sat 9/6, 6 PM-9 PM; Sun 9/7, 1 PM-4 PM RSVP required Free
