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Inventory › Max Petts | Dead Fool (/ˈeɪ/ to zee - vast barron interior revealed - shrinking shrinking shrinking)

Max Petts | Dead Fool (/ˈeɪ/ to zee - vast barron interior revealed - shrinking shrinking shrinking)

£4,200.00

Dead Fool (/ˈeɪ/ to zee - vast barron interior revealed - shrinking shrinking shrinking)

Acrylic, pine, emulsion, mdf, steel, nylon, masking tape, giclée print, panel pins, watercolour, coffee, coloured pencil, tempera craft paint, graphite, paper

80.4 x 110.9 x 1.8 cm

2025

£4,200 GBP

Enquire here

This work riffs on the Fool’s Cap Map of the World, a sixteenth-century engraving in which a jester’s cap frames a heart-shaped world map; here replaced by an airline advert from the 1960s depicting Earth cinched into a knot by two jets. The space revealed by the cinch exposes the Photoshop transparency grid - the vast barron interior - that has been subtly added digitally to the existing graphite textures.  Above, the London A-Z logo references Petts’ only used physical map, merging language and spatial control. Clouds from a previous “clown” work drift behind the figure, connecting bodies of work through the atmosphere. A Photoshop magic wand replaces the jester’s sceptre, conjuring a critique of illusion, editing, and authorship. At the base, a blue squiggle signifies both water and the grammar-correcting line from digital documents, while a spiral - borrowed from a calligraphy guide - traces the blur between writing and drawing, nodding to the artist’s mother who taught the form. Playful yet exacting, the work binds personal, technological, and cartographic systems into a visual lexicon of compression and constraint.

Dead Fool (/ˈeɪ/ to zee - vast barron interior revealed - shrinking shrinking shrinking)

Acrylic, pine, emulsion, mdf, steel, nylon, masking tape, giclée print, panel pins, watercolour, coffee, coloured pencil, tempera craft paint, graphite, paper

80.4 x 110.9 x 1.8 cm

2025

£4,200 GBP

Enquire here

This work riffs on the Fool’s Cap Map of the World, a sixteenth-century engraving in which a jester’s cap frames a heart-shaped world map; here replaced by an airline advert from the 1960s depicting Earth cinched into a knot by two jets. The space revealed by the cinch exposes the Photoshop transparency grid - the vast barron interior - that has been subtly added digitally to the existing graphite textures.  Above, the London A-Z logo references Petts’ only used physical map, merging language and spatial control. Clouds from a previous “clown” work drift behind the figure, connecting bodies of work through the atmosphere. A Photoshop magic wand replaces the jester’s sceptre, conjuring a critique of illusion, editing, and authorship. At the base, a blue squiggle signifies both water and the grammar-correcting line from digital documents, while a spiral - borrowed from a calligraphy guide - traces the blur between writing and drawing, nodding to the artist’s mother who taught the form. Playful yet exacting, the work binds personal, technological, and cartographic systems into a visual lexicon of compression and constraint.

  • Max Petts lives and works in London. They graduated from the Goldsmiths MFA in 2023 and from Chelsea College of Art in 2012. 

    Their practice deals with the complexity of looking and making while seeking to examine their place in the world and the specific set of privileges and penalties they have inherited. Working across disciplines (drawing, painting, writing, finding) they focus on the interplay of images and objects and the relationships that allow meaning to develop. Relationships between bodies and materials, facts and fictions. They consider their practice as an awareness building exercise; a way to posit contradictions.

  • 2019 - 2023 Goldsmiths, University of London, MFA Fine Art

    2009 - 2012 Chelsea College of Art, BA (Hons) Fine Art

    Selected shows:

    2025 Proscenium, Xxijra Hii, London, UK (Solo)

    2022 flowers (w/ Robert Orr) - Xxijra Hii, London, UK (Duo)

    2025 Salon Sauvage, Gnossienne Gallery, London, UK (Forthcoming group show)

    2023 This be the verse, Xxijra Hii, London, UK (Group), Interlude, Kupfer, London, UK (Group), Baggage Claim, Staffordshire St, London, UK, 2022 Present Tense, Goldsmiths MFA Studios, London, UK, 2021 MAXWORLD presents: Smokey, Merle and friends..., 310 New Cross Road, London, UK, 2020 Goldsmiths, Department of Eagles, Online, 2019 You, Me and Everybody Else, Oneroom Gallery, London, UK, 2016 My Own Private Idaho, Charlton Gallery, London, UK.

Xxijra Hii is a gallery in London, UK

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