Max Petts | Dead Proscenium i (the curse)

£4,200.00

Dead Proscenium i (the curse)

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

80.4 x 110.9 x 1.8 cm

2025

£4,200 GBP

Enquire here

Set within the structure of a proscenium arch lifted from an online instructional video, this work stages a complex constellation of image, object, and illusion. At centre, a circus sealion balances a globe that doubles as Tissot’s indicatrix - a cartographic diagram visualising distortions in map projections. Framing the action are algebraic X and Y symbols, evoking coordinates and axes, while the stage itself morphs into a perspectival playground: a cube borrowed from Marcel Broodthaers, a staircase platform from an unidentified V&A stage design, and a miniature easel quoting René Magritte’s The Human Condition. On the easel sits The Curse - a recursive painting-within-a-painting, photographed from Petts’ screen and digitally integrated. The entire composition loops theatrical illusion with epistemic distortion, asking what it means to frame, perform, and distort knowledge all at once.

Dead Proscenium i (the curse)

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

80.4 x 110.9 x 1.8 cm

2025

£4,200 GBP

Enquire here

Set within the structure of a proscenium arch lifted from an online instructional video, this work stages a complex constellation of image, object, and illusion. At centre, a circus sealion balances a globe that doubles as Tissot’s indicatrix - a cartographic diagram visualising distortions in map projections. Framing the action are algebraic X and Y symbols, evoking coordinates and axes, while the stage itself morphs into a perspectival playground: a cube borrowed from Marcel Broodthaers, a staircase platform from an unidentified V&A stage design, and a miniature easel quoting René Magritte’s The Human Condition. On the easel sits The Curse - a recursive painting-within-a-painting, photographed from Petts’ screen and digitally integrated. The entire composition loops theatrical illusion with epistemic distortion, asking what it means to frame, perform, and distort knowledge all at once.

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.

Max Petts | Dead Proscenium i (the curse)

£4,200 GBP

Enquire here

£4,200 GBP

Enquire here

About Max Petts

Max Petts CV