Max Argyle · Abstract Paintings & Functional Art

Collection One

The Abstractions

Acrylic, oil and ink, layer over layer. Built up, torn back, and reworked until only what I love survives. Every surface carries the full history of its making. Led by two triptychs.

Collection Two

The Fluid Works

Ink and pigment poured, tilted, bled out with alcohol, then set in resin. The material finds its own currents, pools and blooms. Then comes the slow part: editing until every inch earns its place.

Up Close

The Surface

The paintings at touching distance: ink, pigment and metal leaf held at different depths in the resin. In a room, they move as you do: new tones, new reflections from every angle. No photograph quite catches it; these twenty-four come closest.

Macro detail: gold-flecked dark field, Nocturne, Harbour

Macro detail: dense layered strata with drips, Nocturne, Harbour

Macro detail: dark multicolour strata, Nocturne, Harbour

Macro detail: orange line over black impasto

Macro detail: flecked field in colour, Nocturne, Harbour

Macro detail: teal and violet resin pooling, sold work

Macro detail: teal cloud over amber, sold work

Macro detail: green vein through layered colour, sold work

Macro detail: purple and black gloss, sold work

Macro detail: green and pink mineral spray, Rockpool

Macro detail: blue and white crackle, Rockpool

Macro detail: pink, teal and gold marble

Macro detail: pink and teal veins over gold leaf

Macro detail: pink and gold leaf currents

Macro detail: pink marble with black islands

Macro detail: gold veil, fingerprint ripples

Macro detail: gold veil with rippled ridge texture

Macro detail: violet and blue mineral mottling

Macro detail: pink, teal and gold marbling

Macro detail: red and rose currents with gold

Macro detail: white crackle with a blue band

Macro detail: amber pour with a trapped bubble

Why I Create

The Work

There will only ever be one of it. Even I couldn’t make it twice.

I tend to create at night, when the world has gone to sleep and it’s peaceful. Everything that needs doing is done, and I can begin. Most work is upkeep: fixing things that break and break again, repeating yesterday. Making a painting, or a piece of functional art, is the opposite. When it’s finished, I’ve brought something into the world that brings joy, something that wasn’t there the night before. That feeling, when I finally turn in, never wears off.

It’s also the only time my head goes quiet. My brain doesn’t do “in the moment” anywhere else. But when I’m working on a piece, adjusting it, thinking through what it needs, I’m not thinking about anything else at all. It’s the nearest thing I’ve found to meditation.

In the Studio Now

A woodland series, underway

New paintings in progress: pine light worked over scraped colour. Watch them come together; finished pieces go to the mailing list first.

Woodland painting in progress: scraped pink and white underlayer — The underlayer

Woodland painting in progress: pine trunks emerging — Trunks emerging

Woodland painting in progress: canopy building — Canopy building

Woodland painting nearing completion — Nearly there

Finished woodland painting on the studio table — Off the wall

Palm painting in progress on trestles, white spray over a night-dark ground — The palm piece, mid-pour

Fourteen seconds, several weeks: one woodland painting from first scrape to standing pines.

Join the mailing list to see these finished first, before they're listed anywhere.

Collection Three

Functional Art

Doors, tables and panels, painted and poured with the same hands as the canvases. One-off pieces living in private homes. All were commissioned or made because I wanted them to exist. Click any piece for more views.

Verdant double doors: painted glass in greens and golds, installed in a private hallway — Verdant DoorsPainted glass double doors · Commissioned · private residence

Painted glass panels glowing against a window, backlit by daylight — Illuminated PanelsPainted glass, daylight-backlit · Private residence

Painted glass double doors in gold and indigo marbling — Gilded DoorsPainted glass double doors · Commissioned · private residence

Tall mixed-media glass panel in the studio, layered inks and resin, made to be backlit — Backlit Glass PanelMixed media on glass · In the studio

Custom backlit installation fitted under the stairs beside gilded glass doors — Under-Stairs InstallationCustom backlit install · Not for sale

Console table with white and blue poured resin top — Console TablePoured resin top · Private residence

Chest of drawers painted in dense multicolour — Painted Chest & PedestalPainted furniture set · $12,500

Desk with deep green resin top beside a brass lamp — Emerald TablePoured resin over timber · $10,500

The Doors: from gold blank to installed, 25 seconds.

Every object here was made for a specific person and place. If you have a door, a table, a wall of glass that deserves better, tell me about it.

Commission an object

Shown & Collected

The work, out in the world

Open-studio evenings, private hangs, long-term loans and personal deliveries. Where the paintings and objects end up, and how they get there.

Visitors viewing paintings at an open-studio evening — Open studio, first evening

Guests moving between rooms hung with paintings — Room to room

Max standing beside large framed works, showing their scale — In the hang: the works at full scale

A corridor hung with a commissioned series of long panels — A commissioned series in place

Max carrying a large painting down outdoor steps for delivery — Delivered personally

Loading a wrapped painting into the van — On its way to a collector

A framed three-panel painting installed on a corridor wall — On long-term loan, in place

A large framed square painting in black, cream and violet — Hung where it can do some good

A long horizontal painting in a black frame above a corridor — On loan until it finds its person

The Artist

About Max

Max Argyle standing beside a hang of his framed mixed-media paintings — With a private hang of framed works.

I make abstract paintings and one-off functional art: furniture, doors and objects built with the same hands. The paintings are mixed media in the fullest sense: acrylic, oil, ink and resin on wood, canvas and glass, sometimes over mirrored surfaces. I build in layers, edit hard, and rework until I love every inch. And because those layers sit at different depths in the resin, the finished work keeps changing as you walk around it.

I paint because I love the process. Outside of commissions for collectors, everything shown is made for my own home, because I love it and because it makes me feel something special to be around it. If a piece sells to someone who loves it and it enriches their life, that’s an amazing feeling; if it doesn’t, I get to enjoy it every day until it finds the person who needs it.

It’s important to me that there are no barriers between the collector and the art. That’s why every price on this site is public: no “price on application,” no theatre. Just the work and the number.

If you buy from me, you deal with me. I crate it, I ship it, and I’m still here long after it’s on your wall. Most of my clients are repeat clients, which I take as the best review there is. Commissions are open for paintings and functional art alike, when it’s something I’d be excited to make.

That’s the whole story. No manifesto, no mythology. The work either speaks to you or it doesn’t.

A number of my framed works are out on long-term loan, hanging where they can do some good. They remain available, and if a piece you’re interested in is on loan, a viewing is easy to arrange: just ask.

Paintings in progress on easels and trestles in the studio — In the studio.

Follow the Work

New paintings, first refusal

An occasional letter from the studio: new work, pieces in progress, and first pick before anything is listed. Written by me, sent when there’s something worth showing.

No spam, ever. Unsubscribe any time.

Acquire a Work

Enquiries

Whether it’s a painting you want to live with, a commission you’re weighing up, or a question about how a piece looks in daylight: write and you’ll get me, not a gallery. Crating, shipping and everything in between, handled personally.

Email Max

or write directly to consultingmax@pm.me

How buying works

Reserve a piece by email and I’ll come back to you the same day, usually sooner. Every work travels differently. Some I crate and deliver myself, others go with a specialist art courier, so once I know where it’s heading I’ll confirm exactly how yours will arrive, and what it costs. Either way it’s fully insured from my studio door to yours.

Each painting comes with a signed certificate of authenticity: title, medium, size, year, my signature. These are one-of-one pieces; the certificate is your record of that. In the unlikely event a work arrives damaged, tell me within 48 hours with photos and I’ll make it right: repair, replace where possible, or a full refund. Beyond that, sales are final: every piece is photographed honestly here, and if you’re unsure about anything before buying, ask me. I’d rather answer ten questions than have a painting hang somewhere it isn’t loved.