Maximillion Leszczynski (they/them) is an emerging multi-disciplinary trans non-binary artist based in Montreal, Canada. Their work explores the concept of identity, and how it is shaped by memories and experiences. They spent 5 years working in the tattoo industry full-time building the WILDFIREPUNCH platform, before re-locating to Montreal and re-opening their personal practice in 2023.
WILDFIREPUNCH is a creative identity that works in various mediums but focuses mainly on tattooing. Through social media, it acts as a bridging point to clients for collaborative tattoo work that is graphic, colourful and abstract in nature. Max works closely with clients to create custom projects on skin that highlight the client’s unique tastes, identity, and body.
In their personal practice - through painting, drawing, sculpture and installation work - they continue to investigate themes of identity and the narrative of the individual, working in various materials and formats to create objects and drawings of landscapes, both encountered in others and in the self.
Artist Statement
I find it best to describe my ideas through visual metaphor. For me, an identity is better understood if perceived as a titan - a slowly undulating landscape that marches through the space it inhabits. I like the idea that rolling hills are actually rolling; it seems fantastical, and absurd, and disquieting.
I also find it best to add a dash of drama.
As an emerging artist, I work in tattooing, painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation to explore the multitudes of landscapes that surround us in our daily lives; the identity of the self, and those around. These landscapes are constantly shifting, impacted by memory, experience, our choices in how we present ourselves, and how we perceive others. To exist is to be constantly shifting in these landscapes, as everything slowly entangles into each other, and weaves an intricate web that is full of mesmerizing vistas. My work is an ongoing series; it is fragments and pieces of a constantly shifting landscape in front of me that I'm trying to replicate and a large influence in my work comes from microscopic imagery, using the smallest landscape as a personal muse.
For my installation and sculptural work, I strive to have it exist in the viewer's space so suddenly, that they feel as if they encroach on the space of an autonomous landscape. Finding unease, as if they’re interrupting the space of something else and witnessing another rolling hill pass by. In painting and drawing, I'm always pulled towards a boldness in depicting my landscapes, working with bright and contrasting colour palettes. Finally, in my tattooing practice, I work closely with the clients to design a piece that not only corresponds with a part of their own individual landscape, but also flows and shifts with their body. It is a constant collaborative way of working, bringing an element of my own style to meet the needs of their personal landscapes. Every client is a rolling hill, a shifting landscape I get a glimpse of, and I'm desperately trying to catch up and try and recreate what I see.