Max Coffey (MaxKafe)
Kaiserslautern
Max is an explorer, polymath, craftsman, artist and teacher.
Message
Growing up on a family farm, Max was a maker, fixer and problem solver. His first college art course was in 1953. The first influences, that he remembers, were artists from the Bauhaus school and Picasso. As a graduate student, in the 1960s, he explored abstract expressionism, surrealism, minimalism, pop art, design, ceramics and jewelry. Integrity, simplicity, line and space are the things that seem, to him, to be most important.
Statement
Max’s definition of art is: human expression, with an actor, a medium and an observer. The actor is the primary, and often the only, observer. Art transcends material reality. Art is a synthesis of physical and metaphysical. Max sees paintings as interesting precious objects that hang on the wall.