Extremely Handsome Plein-Air Extreme Team Maxon Higbee

maxonhigbee@hotmail.com www.maxonhigbee.com

Eric Ashcraft

eric.ashcraft@gmail.com ericashcraft.com

Descripcin Conceptual y Tcnica

For the last three years Eric Ashcraft and Maxon Higbee have been collaborating on a project that involves Plein-Aire painting in problematic or impossible circumstances. Examples of this practice range from painting in Lake Michigan (twenty yards off the shore) to painting while running with the bulls in Chinchon Spain. The work itself then, includes a performative element that blurs the lines between the disciplines of painting and performance. The relevance of this project is not merely in an exploration of the above mentioned medias, but is also an attempt to generate artwork within an hyper-experiential framework, where the circumstances surrounding the art product are as important as the product itself. This project examines idea of plein-air painting as an art form that was historically subversive, and which was a development principally concerned with the rural, which is now considered anachronistic and nave within the dialogue of contemporary art. However it is within shifiting the context of plein-air painting from the rural to the urban that the Plein Aire Extreme Team has centered their practice, to the result of making what was thought to be outmoded seem renewed and experimental. The project further explores how this marker, of a time where the rural was avante garde, becomes re-contextualied once more by being reinserted back into the rural domain, which itself has dramatically changed since that same time.

The Plein Air Extreme Team Paint Lake Michigan 2009 Chicago performance poster and documentation

Encierro en Chinchn 2012 Spain documentatio of performance and resulting painting


Failed Attempt to Paint Lake Michigan (one) 2009 d-print 66 x 81 cm

Strong Winds in La Mancha 2012 Spain documentation of performance with resulting painting


Failed Attempt to Paint Lake Michigan (two) 2009 d-print 66 x 81 cm

Plein Air Extreme Team Paint a Ferocious Black Bear 2010 Chicago performance poster and documentation

MAXON MORRISON HIGBEE C/ Olivar 33 | Bajo Local | Madrid 28012 682 922 972 | maxonhigbee@hotmail.com | maxonhigbee.com EDUCATION M.F.A Painting/Drawing, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 2010 B.F.A Painting/Drawing, California State University Chico. 2007 B.A English Literature, California State University Chico. 2007 INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS AND LECTURES The Plein-Air Extreme Team, Thyssen-Bornemiza Museum, Madrid 2013 Above as it is Below, Lecture, California State University Chico, California, 2012 One and None, a Plurality of Worlds, Lecture, AUB, Beirut, Lbano, 2012 Dust < > Dust, La Tabacalera, Madrid, 2011 To Boldly Glow, Zobrili Gallery, Chicago, 2010 March of Cain, Blue Room Theatre Gallery, Chico, California, 2008 Chapter Four: AB UNO, Culminating Exhibition for the Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, BFA Gallery, Chico, EEUU, 2007 Ingres and Delacroix: Fistfight in Heaven, BFA Gallery, Chico,California, 2006 The Brush-Ups, with David Fuller and Johanna Handke, A.S. Gallery, Chico, 2006 Bayliss Bound, Bayliss Public Library Gallery, Bayliss, EEUU, 2005 SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS New American Paintings, #101 New American Paintings Exhibition in Print, 2012 Los Artistas del Barrio, The Windor, Madrid, Spain, 2012 Zobrili Collection, Murdertown Gallery, Chicago, 2011 Perspective Subjective, Sullivan Gallery, Chicago, 2011 Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain, PT Gallery, Chicago, 2010 Crucifix, Zobrili Gallery, Chicago, 2010 Midnight Snacks, 1366 N Milwaukee, Chicago, 2010 Intertwined, Sanskriti Gallery, New Delhi, India, 2010 Technically its Art, Abryant Gallery, Chicago, 2009 Noroc 3, Green Lantern Gallery, Chicago, 2009 Apartment Store, Sullivan Gallery, Chicago, 2008 Under Five, The Crux Gallery, Chico, EEUU, 2008 Touch It, BFA Gallery, Chico, EEUU 2007 Salon de Refuses, The Crux Gallery. Chico, EEUU 2006 Pushing The Non-Square Pixel 2 University Film Series, Chico, EEUU 2006 Art 911, BFA Gallery, Chico, California, 2006 All Together Now, BFA Gallery, Chico, California, 2006 Tiny Teenies, MedArt 59, Chico, California, 2006 Madlib Mnemonic, Ayres Gallery, Chico, California, 2005 Fussy Girl, BFA Gallery, Chico, California, 2005 Texy, BFA Gallery, Chico, California, 2005 AWARDS New American Paintings, #101 New American Paintings Competition, 2012 John Quincey Adams Merit Fellowship, School of the Art Institute Chicago, 2010 World Less Traveled Grant, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2010 16th Annual Arts Leadership Award, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2009 15th Annual Arts Leadership Award, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2009 Trustee Merit Fellowship, Society for Contemporary Art Chicago, 2008-2010 Pierce/Truckess Watermedia Scholarship, 2006