Let's Face It

by Max Wald

Gasworks Arts Park presents Max Wald's exhibition 'Let's Face It'.

A series of acrylic paintings using clowns to explore the masks we hide behind to fit in or break away from societal groups and structures.

Captivated, spellbound, and intrigued at the many façades and frontages we choose to adorn and enfold ourselves within, we do so to hide in plain sight, to blend into a particular group, to rebel against another, and so on. The reasons and façades are endless, colourful, light, and dark.

The façade is also used for blending within our groups, so not to be outed within the space, place and community we sit within. The opposite works as well; for rebellion, change, or a public statement that we want to be seen supporting. We can also wear our mask to provoke, seduce and invite temptation within our daily lives that otherwise would consist of nothing more than our ordinary, day to day reality.

“I want to belong to this tribe so this is how WE must look”. This form of visual identification undermines our own personal and uniquely individual graphic sense of who we are and what we have decided to represent at a certain time and place within our journey.

What is your façade?