Maxim, The Prodigy

Maxim, part of the Prodigy trio. The Vocalist has turned his creative flare to painting and works under the artist name MM.

Just as his musical background has influenced his art, art has in turn fed into his wider creative practise. At the heart of his approach is a love and appreciation of freedom. “I was always restricting myself when I did music, never knowing how to let go and let it be what it is… That’s one thing I’ve learned about art – there aren’t really mistakes in art, are there?”

Nonetheless when he discards his work, there is a finality to it.

“I just have this thing – if something ain’t working now, I just burn it. I never keep it. Kind of like a ritual.”

Maxim has been painting for about 11 years, at first, using acrylics mostly, trying to catch textures and different colours in the sky. Landscapes, that sort of thing. No figures or shapes that you could recognise exactly. Then he went to New York and met quite a few artists who opened his eyes to different techniques. This made him realise that art isn’t just about acrylics and oils, also using images, manipulating them and tweaking them.

“To put the head of a horse onto the body of sheep or something. Something mad.”