“In many ways, I have been able to concentrate more on painting than I can under ordinary circumstances”
Max Ferguson, who paints photorealistic scenes, has been marooned in Jerusalem since early March.
In a typical year, Max Ferguson would go to New York four or five times, but 2020 has been anything but regular. Ferguson, who tends to spend one to three months per photorealistic oil painting (his record is eight), has been at his home in Jerusalem since arriving in Israel on March 7, and quarantining for two weeks.
“Like everyone, my life has been somewhat turned upside down,” he said, noting that he has “been essentially marooned here in Jerusalem ever since.” Fortunately, his studio is a five-minute walk away, so even during lockdowns, of which Israel has had several, he can paint.
With travel to New York out of the question and no exhibitions on the docket, he has been able to paint more.
“Because some outside distractions have been eliminated it has afforded me the opportunity to concentrate more on the actual painting,” Ferguson said. “I have been more prolific these last seven months than I am ordinarily.”
A very slightly cropped version of Ferguson’s new painting “Elevators.” Courtesy of the artist.
One painting Ferguson made during the “age of COVID” of which he is particularly proud is “Elevators,” which is as much a study of light and reflection as anything else.
“It has a nice sense of mystery and hinted narrative about it, as well as, I feel, being visually striking,” he said. “One of my goals is an artistic marriage between Hopper and Vermeer. This hints at that.” (Note: Ferguson’s paintings have much better perspective than do Hopper’s.)
Another work which Ferguson painted in the past few months is “1912,” which he sees as parallel visually to an early Tom Waits song. “For me, this has that quality,” he said.
In his teens and 20s, Ferguson painted self-portraits, but he hasn’t depicted himself in a long time. “Just recently, Hitchcock-like, I have been making some cameo appearances in my paintings,” he said. (He is the man behind the desk.)
A slightly cropped version of Ferguson’s new painting “1912.” Courtesy of the artist.
Ferguson tends to paint from photographs—which he uses as springboards—but the photo lab he uses was closed during one Israeli lockdown. This forced him to work from a much-smaller photograph, so the corresponding painting was considerably smaller than the scale in which he typically works.
“Quite the strain on my eyes!” he said
The result, titled “The Met,” clocks in at just eight by 10 inches, and the face of the man in the painting is only about an inch tall. “Despite its minute size, I feel it has a fully developed depth to it as a portrait,” Ferguson said, and so it does.
A slightly cropped version of Ferguson’s new painting “The Met.” Courtesy of the artist.
I asked the artist to what extent, if at all, he tries to respond to what’s going on beyond his studio walls—particularly in a year such as this. It turns out that he has been debating this question for decades and asking himself what his role is as an artist when there are painful and destructive things going on in the world.
“Is it my moral responsibility to draw people’s attention to the horrors in the world, or should my role be more of an entertainer, giving people pleasure and a brief escape from the burdens of life, via my paintings?” Ferguson said. “I have never really resolved those questions.”
Isolation and urban alienation (magna civitas magna solitudo) have long been themes of his work, so Ferguson thinks his art, to an extent, does reflect upon current affairs. “I was very conscious while doing the painting of the Metropolitan Opera that while working on it there were no performances going on there,” he said.
Ferguson also adds newspaper clippings to the backs of his panel paintings, so the works relate to current events. A clipping about the then very-high daily COVID death rate in Italy is affixed to the back of “Elevators.”
A slightly cropped version of Ferguson’s “1833” (2020). Oil on panel. 12 inches squared. Courtesy of the artist.
When he finished his most recent painting, titled “1833” after the founding year of Martin Guitars, Ferguson thought about the plight of musicians, who haven’t been able to perform for so long. “Of course, they are suffering terribly economically as a result,” he said. (The guitar factory depicted is headquartered in Nazareth, Pa.)
I remembered talking with Ferguson years ago for a Jewish Press review, during which he told me, “I don’t want anyone ever saying about me, ‘Oh, I didn’t know he was Jewish.’ With my Ellis Island name, people often assume I am not.” So I asked what it’s been like to be a Jewish artist during the pandemic.
“While I have not been doing any Jewish-specific imagery of late, I have always felt that there is an inherent Jewishness to all my work. I think looking at my paintings out of the context of my Jewishness, is like reading James Baldwin out of the context of his Blackness,” Ferguson said.
“Being in Israel, Jewishness is so in the air it is impossible to ignore it or not be conscious of it,” he added. “Certainly this year has been disturbingly unique in not being able to attend services on the chagim [holidays]. It is hard to be Jewish alone.”
A final note: Ferguson hasn’t yet had his new works photographed professionally. I’ve cropped the imagery he shared to make them easier to view, so I encourage readers to visit the artist’s site to see his other works (and these in full when they post). Cropping a painter’s composition is somewhat like making a conductor begin a symphony 4 minutes and 13 seconds into the music and conclude 7 minutes and 28 seconds early.
Fascinating piece, Menachem.