“Dark, twisted, and ominously beautiful.”
Darren Lynn Bousman,
director of REPO! The Genetic Opera
www.repo-opera.com

 
“Max, with camera always in hand, stitches together an appropriately creepy, living dead world littered with the segmented worms of his own adventures. Of course nothing but fun is to be had in the real world with Max, yet he neatly manages to sculpt the Sturm und Drang, trauma induced peeking, just behind his eyelids.”
Ogre
ohGr/Skinny Puppy
www.skinnypuppy.com

 
"For those of us whose tastes are firmly entrenched in the macabre, it's easy to fall in love with the dark world Michaels has created. But what truly sets him apart is the fact that he creates every photographic element in each piece. In this day of appropriation where 'works of art' are comprised of clip-art and digital 'found objects' from the virtual junkyard of the internet, it is commendable the pains he's taken to create every corner of his strange and wonderful world."
Voltaire
filmmaker, Musician, Artist
www.voltaire.net

Max Michaels has an artistic vision that uses the human body not merely as inspiration, but rather as the frame work for conceptual, political, and social commentary. The images range from beautiful to horrific, but rarely wander from their focus on anatomy as the mechanism of art-making, as opposed to its subject matter. Although constructed through photographic elements, the images contain a sculptural quality and each structure takes on a scientific aesthetic. The human figure is eerily warped into 'Frankensteinian' creations built to represent a perspective of the world, but always containing an element of shock. In his art, the sanctity of the human body is often violated, and this serves to jar the viewer into feeling the concept, even before the analytical mind can grasp it.
Rogue
of The Crüxshadows
www.cruxshadows.com