I was born in the 70s, in Italy. Half of my family comes from southern Italy and half from the North. As a child I was good at mathematics, drawing and geography, but never good with languages.
I like good food, old craftsmen who know how to do their job and do it with passion, the eyes of people who wonder, those who smile often, shops that sell old things.
I like authentic taverns and the people who frequent them, I love the winter sea and the fog. I like to walk alone in silence. I love Mozart and Rachmaninoff piano concerts and classical music in general. I don’t like people who are too selfish, mushrooms and places with too many people, waiting in line brings me anxiety. I can’t stand those who make too much noise and disturb others. I’m terrified of snakes and circular saws. Video games have never made me crazy. Now I live in Norway, a country that I love, even though I am often in Italy, a country that I still don’t fully understand…
Everyone in my family had an artistic period, which in my case was never interrupted.
I have been painting since I was a child, since after school I helped my grandfather who was one of the most appreciated framers in my city. I was lucky enough to see so many artists coming around the house (I lived in the same house as my maternal grandparents) to come and have their works framed. The best memories are those linked to the scent of turpentine, Linseed and Poppy oil, cut wood and Aquaragia and vinyl glue. I had available professional oil colors, brushes and painting tools of the best workmanship that my grandfather used to touch up the paintings he himself bought in the markets or that the artists left in exchange for the unpaid frames. The most magical afternoons I remember were when we went to Venice from Battioro to buy the gold leaf for the most precious frames. Magical experience.
On several occasions I started drawing or painting courses, but they always had the result of getting bored and moving away from the spontaneous passion for these techniques.
For me painting has always been a personal quest, a way to excite the mind, but also a frantic rush and approach to what I think represents the Beautiful and the Harmonious. Following the rules to reach the Beautiful seemed to me to slow down my race and distance me from my goal and I found it unbearable. What is the Beauty and the Harmonious, I can’t explain it in words, but when I see it, I immediately recognize it.
Sometimes a painting never ends, because I can’t be satisfied with its aesthetic harmony, sometimes 10 brush strokes are enough and, in my eyes, it becomes beautiful.
My technique
Mine can be called a mixed technique. I use very solid supports for my paintings that I build in wood myself, because I like to attach different things on the surface: fabrics, carpets, brushes, old objects, paintings by other painters, books etc. I don’t like flat paintings, those that are only enjoyed in two dimensions.
I like three-dimensionality and depth.
Also because a two-dimensional picture is easily reproducible with the new techniques of digital printing. A three-dimensional picture, with thickness, remains in itself not reproducible, as well as being enjoyable from different points of view; it is iridescent, it is material. Powerful! The objects and materials I attach to the supports also define the color tones, which I apply abundantly with acrylic, graphite, oil, vinyl glues and pigments. This is the most oedipal phase of creation: I like to have physical contact with the painting. I generally start with brushes and spatulas to apply the color, but inevitably I end up with my hands and body in a sort of unconscious orgy with the elements. I use only and exclusively top quality colors and materials: as in the kitchen, the result of a dish – beyond the technical execution – is highly influenced by the quality of the ingredients.
I finish my paintings with abundant layers of epoxy resins, with a personal recipe developed over the years
and which guarantees a fantastic resistance to light as well as a glossy and transparent effect and an exaltation of the materiality of the final product. I also like the idea that the painting is protected by several mm of this substance from the years that pass and that the artifact can be preserved for future generations.
MaxMerolli is not my real name and I have changed several during my life to sign my works. I generally changed them when I adopted new painting techniques or the subjects of the same.
After a period, a technique or a subject exhausted, I wanted to destroy everything from that period and start again, from scratch. Because I no longer liked that aesthetic ideal that I chased. Max was what my grandfather called me, Merolli was his last name.
