Mike Maxwell: Complicated Contradictions

Reception: Thursday, July 2nd from 7 to 10pm. Contact info@bgartdealings.com for previews.
bG is pleased to present a solo exhibition by San Diego-based painter Mike Maxwell. Maxwell was given full creative reign to integrate his recent works into an installation in the gallery. The result is an eclectic body of work with different clusters of themes coming together in an immersive installation, including murals on the gallery walls.
Mike Maxwell has been a fixture in the art world underground since the late 1990s when he worked as an artist assistant for Shepard Fairey. His art came into popular culture awareness after he created the portrait logo for the popular Joe Rogan podcast. His own podcast, “Live Free Podcast,” was an artist-interviewing-artist platform that saw over 100 episodes over a five-year span and featured the likes of Mike Giant, Anthony Lister, Ed Templeton, and many other prominent painters and creative types from the scene. In 2011, he and Mike Giant were featured in an art film titled “Working Class,” created by Jeff Durkin of Bread Truck Films.
For over twenty years, Mike Maxwell has spent equal portions of time painting murals in the streets, drawing on train cars, and painting in his studio. His art is gritty yet mature, raw yet refined. His work is a mix of influence and experience from the street scene, to old school graphic techniques to old masters. Renaissance master, Albrecht Durer, as one of his primary influences.
Maxwell’s paintings are from the heart and void of any censorship or concern for mass affirmation. He is an unapologetic contrarian that is not afraid to speak his mind, which is evident in his body of work- a quality found in the purest of paintings. Whether shown here, anywhere else or not at all, these paintings would have been painted because painting for Maxwell is like air and water to the rest of us. This exhibition is merely a collection from the tap of Maxwell’s creativity and, in an effort to showcase his art in the purest light, bG has given full freedom to Maxwell and will take his lead in transforming the space into a one-of-a-kind exhibition.
This is the first major exhibition for Maxwell in ten years and is a long-awaited exhibit by a highly respected artist in the scene.
The gallery is open from Tuesday to Saturday from 11:30am to 6:00pm at Bergamot Station, next door to the Bergamot Cafe