Maximilian Toth painting or is it drawing?

These striking scenarios are produced by the young-ish American artist Maximilian Toth (not to mention a great ‘artist’ name, no?). He depicts his scenarios predominantly in white on black- producing the strong blackboard (or even inverted)-like images. The methods he uses seem to be a very natural crossing between drawing and painting- whereby smudging and smearing work into the contrasts of shadow and depth.. not to mention oils are used in some of them more obviously in some than others.

For myself, these dark spaces inhabited by the characters seem to exhibit an exercise of the memory -far more than some of the wispy paintings I see who’s main claim is commonly to be about ‘memory’. Memory isn’t necessarily dreamy, they can be extraordinarily vivid, yet nonlinear and distorted far more than we can usually ever find out.

Here is a link to an interview with the artist: http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/conversations/2010-01-22/maximilian-toth