Meet Max Devereaux | Artist, Musician & Filmmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Max Devereaux and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Max, have you ever found yourself in a spot where you had to decide whether to give up or keep going? How did you make the choice?
How to know whether to keep going or to give up?

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Hey! I’m Max Devereaux. I’m an artist, musician, and filmmaker originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but these days you can usually find me bouncing between Southern California and Minneapolis, MN. I’ve been doing this professionally for about 15 years now, and if I had to describe my work, I’d say it’s all about staying fluid. I don’t really like being put in a box, so I move between things like free improvisation, abstract painting, indie country, experimental film, electroacoustic music, and even ikebana flower arranging. I think what sets me apart is that I treat all these different mediums as one big conversation. I’m much more interested in intuition, chance, lo-fi aesthetics, and “the accident” than I am in following a strict set of rules or formal training.

I’m really proud of the fact that I’ve been able to build a global community from the ground up. I’ve released music with independent labels all over, including Japan, China, Mexico, South Korea, France, Canada, Greece, Belgium, and the UK. In 2024, I had a solo exhibition of my paintings at M.A.P. Gallery in Tokyo during my first Japanese music tour. It’s those moments, connecting with people who live totally different lives than mine, that can really fuel my work. I’ve found that being playful and experimenting is the best way for me to actually unlock something new.

Getting to where I am today definitely wasn’t a straight line, and it wasn’t always easy. I’m largely self-taught, so I didn’t go the traditional academic route. Instead, I grew up obsessively studying the museums, concert halls, and old movie theaters in Milwaukee. Because I was building my practice outside of a school setting, I had to learn how to be my own guide and teacher. The biggest challenge was probably just navigating being a disabled artist in America who did not grow up with very good financial resources. When I was an early teenager I watched my life fall apart and it has never been put back together since. I suppose all the art that I make is me attempting to build myself back up.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned along the way is that the process is way more important than any “fixed” idea of an outcome. I’ve stopped worrying so much about the end product and started focusing more on creating a space where people can just stop and really perceive something. To quote the great artist Marcel Duchamp: “The artist performs only one part of the creative process. The onlooker completes it, and it is the onlooker who has the last word.”

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If my best friend was visiting Los Angeles and I wanted to show them the best time ever, I would first make sure that their plane was scheduled to land at LAX at 5:00 PM on a Friday in either mid-July or early August. I would pick them up and immediately get on the 405 to take them directly into the heart of Hollywood, where we would then park and walk around the Walk of Fame for about 4 to 5 hours. The next day, starting around noon, I would take them back to the Walk of Fame to make sure we didn’t miss anything and walk around again for another 5 hours or so. For the next three days, I would take them to Disneyland or Universal Studios, where we would walk around for about 12 or more hours each day. Then finally, on the last day, I would drive them to Venice, where we would walk on the Venice boardwalk for about 6 hours.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to shoutout the people of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Website: https://linktr.ee/maxdevereaux

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maxdevereaux/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH-_HgzQp_ztt6szJxw8eZQ

Other: https://maxdevereauxarchive.bandcamp.com/
https://maxdevereaux.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits
Photography by Nik Linde