Max Hudson is a multimedia artist living in central Alabama. He combines animation and illustration with a collage-based studio practice involving found materials that are both digital and physical. Using this interdisciplinary practice, he is able to tell stories that contain illustrated narratives as well as the deep history and significance of the found materials. He is exploring what it means to grow up trans and to love others within Alabama's diverse culture and natural environment, as well as the global connections people can make with each other through shared experience. He currently attends the University of Alabama where he is pursuing a BFA in Studio Arts. He has shown work across Alabama with work on loan in Birmingham. He works in the Paul R. Jones Museum and Diana Washington Art Gallery as a gallery attendant and curatorial assistant.
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.