My name is Max Bickers, and I’m from Sandy Springs, Georgia. I have been around art my whole life and have been heavily influenced by my grandmother, Lu Steed. She encouraged and taught me a lot along the way to becoming an artist. I started taking my interest in art seriously through my North Springs High School art program. Then, coming into college, I decided to study art and graduated with a BFA in Art and a Minor in journalism at Mercer University. My preferred medium is acrylic paint on canvas. I recreate personal moments through my work with reference to photos I take. I reference photos from my life as the process becomes more personal and enjoyable for me when I paint. Recreating a moment or a memory is very rewarding. My most recent body of work (Senior Portfolio) explores my past four years of college and adolescence as I express my memories in a specific way. I plan to communicate my past in ways I see it and how I want to remember it, thus creating an abstract version of a moment in time. This new body of work is separate from my previous pieces, however. I am exploring my past while learning new painting techniques that are currently pushing me to develop my practice; I am opening a window into my world and allowing the viewer to experience my world through my point of view. My cluttered mind and overlapping ideas and memories that I have communicated in paint on canvas. There’s no meaning or narrative I am trying to influence anyone to believe other than the fact that my art represents myself and how I decide to show people from my experiences with them. Common figures and important people in my life are repeated through this work as well. My work is an intimate and vulnerable experience, in efforts to present my most memorable moments of my life.