Max with his little muse in their home in West Tisbury. Homelife feature heavily in his new work. Now on display at the Field.

Max has earned himself a name, an artist, a musician, and a designer. After spending almost a decade focusing on his music as a means of personal expression, he returned to the Island, where he grew up to find a new way to look at his work as a visual artist. Working in oil, Max turned his attention away from the landscape to depict quiet interiors and simple moments of everyday life. Concurrently, he launched his denim brand, Max Decker Co., which features perfect utilitarian jackets and released his first full-length album under Papertwin. We caught up with Max in his studio in West Tisbury with his wife and child to learn more about how being at home has helped him produce some of his strongest, most personal work to date.

Q:: What inspired your new work?

A:: After trying so hard for years to force a narrative into my compositions, I've discovered that it was right in front of me the whole time. All I had to do was look closer to home. Or literally at home. Haha. I've always liked the idea of narrative painting. However, like so many others in their early twenties, my mistake was to think I had some grand wisdom to impart or know anything about anything. This delusion produced mountains of bad art on my part. Once I realized that I had nothing to say, then the only thing left was to work with what I knew, with what I saw and interacted with daily. Also, the realization that I wasn't going to discover something new was very freeing. Now it was all about how I approached the subject rather than what the subject actually was. This is where the good stuff is; subtle shifts in the application of paint or switching up your materials make the difference between a good painting and great painting.

Bath (from the Bedroom Series), Oil on Canvas.

Meet Max in his studio with his wife and child. Music in this video is by Max's band, Papertwin, entitled Former World.

Q:: How do you compose your paintings? Is there a sketch phase, or do you move intuitively within the canvas? Do you work from memory, a photograph, or another medium? Does work begin with a lyric? A color?

A:: I have a camera with me as much as possible. Throughout the day, I take snapshots of things I find interesting. My wife and son are the primary figures I encounter, especially since COVID. Compositions vary, from the remnants of things left on a kitchen counter in preparation for dinner to hair brushing to getting our son ready for bed. Or a particular light on the wall as my wife passes through a room.

So yes, I'm working directly from a photograph. I usually do smaller paintings first and then decide which ones would be best suited for larger, more finished paintings. It's not uncommon for me to paint a series of 4 or 5 of a similar scene. I like working from photographs for all the reasons that more "serious" painters don't. I like how they screw up colors and warp straight lines. It's a simple way to introduce some variation. Not to mention I would never be able to capture the movement that occurs in those brief, candid moments if I was sitting there with a sketchbook. My wife already rolls her eyes when I ask her to repeat something she just did once or twice. I don't think I can entice her to stand on the porch in her nightgown for an hour while our kid is yelling for breakfast so I can try to perfect my sketch.

Staircase, Chilmark House. Oil on Canvas.

Q:: What would a first-time visitor notice about your art studio space?

A:: My studio is in a barn on my parent's property next door to the house where my brothers and I grew up. It has cement floors and way more space than I could have ever hoped for when we lived back in Brooklyn. I have a couple of old sewing machines and a cutting table that I use to make jackets and jeans. I worked at a small denim boutique in Greenpoint, and when I got back to the Vineyard, I missed being able to make my own clothes. You can do quite a lot with one or two machines. I built a big easel last year and two giant racks along with the ceiling that store older paintings that are either waiting to be completed or waiting to be destroyed or brought to the dump. I love throwing away paintings; it imbues the future with so much promise, a brief moment of quiet before things become stubbornly solid on the canvas. I have a few essential woodworking tools, and that's about it. I like to keep the place clean.