Max Streicher Toronto, ON

Clouds

Tyvek and electric blowers

Location: Swimming pool

My work with the cloud image was first inspired the memory of flying over the southern Alberta prairie in a small airplane. Flying in and around freshly formed thunderheads I had the sense of being part of a Tiepolo painting. It was the elemental aspect of the Hart House swimming pool that led me back to the cloud form. Swimming is much like flying. My intention is to disrupt and extend the architecture of this room and enhance the aspect of playfulness inherent to the activity of swimming. This work is directed at the swimmers, with their already altered physical experience, now recast as putti frolicking in an other-worldly medium. As one who has worked extensively with air as a medium, swimmers, with their mindful use of breath, could be my ideal audience.

Max Streicher is a sculptor and installation artist from Toronto. Since 1991 he has worked extensively with kinetic inflatable forms. He has exhibited his work across Canada in numerous public galleries and artist run centres. He has completed several site related projects, most recently in Venice, Siena, Stockholm and Erfurt, Germany. He was a founding member of the Nether Mind collective of artists which organized four large exhibitions in alternative spaces in Toronto between 1991 and 1995. Max Streicher is represented by Artcore Gallery.