A COALITION In contention at the center of nearly every creative professional is a struggle between dueling identities. In one corner exists the creator—vulnerable, bright, longing to produce greatness—always seeking to authentically re-express both the complex inner-workings of the human mind and the goings-on of the world around them. In the opposing corner is the rational professional who exploits an innate ability to make sense of things, to improve the world, to create profit. Instead of lending bias to either side, Max chooses to embrace a coalition of both identities, operating a unique business practice through the unification of creativity and professionalism. Instead of fleeing from the complexities of being both creative and professional, Max exploits the tension between disciplines to create work that is both genuine and unique.

To best explain his work, it is first best to explain him.

THE INK, THE PAINT At the core of Max’s work is the deep inner drive to apply signs and symbols on blank spaces, infusing pallid voids with color, meaning, and memory. Like all men under the sun, Max’s thoughts and anxieties dwell on the standard rituals of humanity: the drive to love another, to belong, to run wildly from the inescapable maw of death. His work is the visual reproduction of his mind’s activity. It is the languid dance between the elegiac and cathartic. Longing and beauty. Life and death.

Through the paint brush, the pen, and the picture frame, Max removes himself from the burdens of existence, and instead seeks to namelessly interact with the individuals who experience his work. Through ink, sketches recreate both urban and natural landscapes, contorting streets and skylines to an interpretation of a memory, while transfiguring the individuals who roam the paths and streets into mannequins who fit neatly into his vision and expression. With watercolors, Max escapes the bleak realm of the ballpoint, vividly retelling the fury of the Florida sun and the serenity of her crystal waters. Images escape the cold blue and blacks of the pen, exploding with verdant vegetation and warm, cobbled roads.

In other pieces, viewers are treated to visions of the cosmic and the surreal. His versatility as a creator is best encapsulated when one sees a quaint sketch of a St Augustine street displayed alongside a measureless cosmos with bright stars illuminating an otherwise empty vacuum of space. The contrast between styles—Old Florida abodes and the abstract dreamscapes—often play into one another. A seemingly normal image of a theater hall or a city street is ripped open, illuminated by the recondite beauty of the mysteriousness of existence, providing a unique view into the pleasures and anxieties of the painter’s mind.

But ink and paint are not the end of the story.

THE HANDSHAKE, THE LEDGER From an early age, Max understood that it was important to learn abilities beyond what one can accomplish in front of an easel. He began to develop an eye for the design and development of the local Floridian vernacular. While other peers his age strayed off to college, confident in the role they were to play in life, the fragmentation of the artistic mind and the pressures of familial strife led him to scrutinize his future. Like the ancestral creatives that came before him, Max found enlightenment while wandering Europe. Across the Atlantic, he discovered that the deep rift between the professional life and the creative life could be bridged by the understanding that good aesthetics could be translated into good business.

After receiving an education in art at South Florida State College, he later relocated to attend the University of Florida. In Gainesville, he excelled in the university’s Landscape Architecture program, graduating in 2013 Summa Cum Laude with an additional minor in Horticulture.

And like every man and woman who had gone before him, time shaped Max to the person he is today.

Underneath the expression of color and the visual stories he tells, Max sees a world divided. From the stretches of Florida he was raised upon, to the streets of Europe he wandered in young adulthood, Max has refused to resign himself to the idea that a single person cannot leave a unique impression on the world. He has instead defined his own reality, and it is populated by the good and beautiful things that have touched and inspired him. Channeling this positive energy, Max founded his namesake company.

As the leader of a company, the firm handshake you feel and the business savvy you hear from Max seems alien for such a well-versed creator. But his balance between the fantasies of the creative and the realities of a professional is what distinguishes The Max Gooding Company. A company equal parts art and industry. Symbol and science. Just like the man himself.