Master and Commander Painting

Max Horst Sokolowski is a highly trained & full-time contemporary Australian painter having completed a Master Degree at the European Academy of Arts in 1997 who generally paints under the name Max Horst. Exploring the nature of people and the relationships between them, Horst’s paintings are very often short stories of small,daily moments of life. He distills these relationships through simplified forms and shapes, developing his own code of symbols - a code which is constantly changing and developing over time. In his quest for simplicity and honesty, Horst draws much of his inspiration from cave paintings and naive art, “because I find them very honest as a form of art”. The viewer can sometimes sense the presence of elements of Aboriginal art in Horst's work. Using oil, acrylic, watercolour, gouache, he may mix them with drawing techniques. Natural pigments of earth colours are the base of Horst's palette. With an intuitive preoccupation with colour, form and line, Horst’s work belies a carefully considered composition and an appreciation of the nature of human interaction. Horst’s work is held in private collections throughout Australia and overseas.