Maxito: A Memorial Exhibition
by Lope Max Díaz

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Lope Max Díaz is a Puerto Rican visual artist and educator who has resided in North Carolina since 1988. He maintained an active studio practice throughout his forty-one years of teaching experience, exhibiting work throughout PR and the Southeast US. Díaz often uses autobiographical constructs in his work, allowing the physicality of materials to become active participants in the visual discourse of his mixed media paintings. Tension between formal and informal elements is drawn out through the use of color and rhythm. 

This exhibition is a selection of works Díaz created after the sudden and unexpected death of his son, Max, in 2017 at the age of forty. While Díaz' past work has concealed autobiographical narratives through abstraction, the work shown here serves a different purpose. Here Díaz introduces the figure, specifically his son's  silhouette, laser cut from a photo as an objective form. In recreating the shape of Max's profile, Díaz documents in a physical way, the imprint of his son's existence in the world. 

Díaz has explored mixed media painting throughout his career, and these works use acrylic paint over canvas, Masonite, foam board, and wood circles. The minimalist aesthetic slows the act of viewing, asking the viewer to study the pieces in order to find the connections that made Max who he was. Díaz' choice of a bold and energetic color palette invokes the joy of life, as the figure is lifted up, down, and up again through the cycle of life, death, and resurrection. 

This body of work is a celebration, through form and color, of the life of Max Díaz, "Maxito". The artwork will be in this space during the anniversary of Max's birthday, June 10, and the day of his death, May 24. It creates a permanent record of the love between father and son, and  acknowledges that for those Max left behind grief will always be carried in one hand and joy in the other. 

Max died of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), an aggressive form of brain cancer. Through this exhibition the artist also brings attention and awareness to this deadly disease for which there is no cure.