Max Lee Hudson is a mixed media artist, animator, and musician based in Birmingham, Alabama. They recently graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts and are now pursuing a Bachelor in Fine Arts at the University of Alabama with a concentration in sculpture and digital media. Max expresses their own personal experience of growing up and in the online world, as well as in the deep South, through abstract storytelling. They have 2 albums of experimental sound art and music, web based and digital artwork, a collection of collage-style animations, as well as interdisciplinary sculptural works, fiber works, and paintings.
They have participated in group exhibitions across Alabama, and they have placed in both the Southeastern Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and the Shelby County Statewide High School Juried Art Exhibit, with work on loan in Birmingham.
Max Lee Hudson
maxwellleehudson@gmail.com
Lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama
Exhibitions
Der Großmann, 2019, Alabama School of Fine Arts, Birmingham, Alabama
Nikephoros I, 2022, Sloss Metal Arts Apprenticeship Program, Birmingham, Alabama
Paralelisme, 2023, Alabama School of Fine Arts, Birmingham, Alabama
Anomalocaris, 2023, Shelby County Juried Exhibition, Shelby County, Alabama
Rubberneckin’, 2024, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama.
где ты, где мы, 2024, Alabama School of Fine Arts, Birmingham, Alabama
Upcoming: Odin Doma, 2024, The Bells Gallery: ALABAMA, Dothan, Alabama.
Sloss Metal Arts Apprenticeship Program (2022), Birmingham Alabama
MICA Pre-College Film and Video (2023), Baltimore, Maryland
Alabama School of Fine Arts (2018-2024), Birmingham Alabama
University of Alabama BFA Program (2024-Present), Tuscaloosa, Alabama
From a young age, I have been atypical in terms of sex and gender. Throughout my childhood I searched for ways to express myself that would allow me to escape the social roles I felt pressured to fill. I ended up lost, withdrawing from reality to an internal imaginary world influenced by the media I was exposed to, online and in my daily life, and severed from my physical body. As a teenager, I experienced intense altered states of consciousness and physicality due to hormone transition, growing up as male and female interchangeably. I have returned to my body’s natural physical state while labeling myself as male socially. This “end result” of my transition is not an identification, but the perspective I have gained. The luck and opportunities life has granted me have allowed me to literally mold myself, both mentally and physically, in whatever way I want. Independent from social roles or restraint while still being fully present in the real world.
My art shows how this commensurate version of myself looks out from the inside at my new body and the new way I see the world, and how it slowly grows out into the way I present myself. I portray this inner perception by combining digital and physical mediums that connect on their malleability. I have a method of warping preexisting digital images into new textures as a form of layered painting, often animated, being warped by hand one frame at a time and simultaneously scrolling across the picture plane. Physically, I build up sculptural materials like foam clay into forms and textures from nothing in a visceral manner. I usually use latex paint because of its thickness and ability to smooth forms down like a layer of skin. I interlink physical and digital forms through inkjet printing onto paper and fabric, each having their own effect on the digital media. The ultimate goal in my work is to progress and reach my fullest potential, become totally connected and functional not only as a member of society, but in my interpersonal relationships, using my perspective to influence the world positively.