Maximillian Brown

As Two Flies Danced

Eighteen is pleased to present

As Two Flies Danced
A solo exhibition by Maximillian Brown

OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY OCTOBER 3. TIME: 16.00 – 21.00
EXHIBITION PERIOD: OCTOBER 4 – NOVEMBER 15. 2025

Maybe that’s how we got it wrong - that we can’t have a metaphysical body - that the transcendental is light flight - leaving behind the gravitational pull of bodily existence.

We always have to leave. Ye olde mind body dualism. Body and soul must depart. Au revoir. For the heavens. Transcend. 

Stay. Lay down back in bed. I see your imprint in the sheets. I know that you are here - or were. Pull yourself back into your body. I need you here. I believe in transcendental painting. I believe these paintings. Paintings with girth and weight. The smell of oil and soil. Musky landscapes. Crisp morning mountains. Abstract fjords with a sexy deep existential void. Blink. The surfaces rupture and reform. Blink. The landscape is shaking with you. Not searching for god(s), nor for myself, but for the connection beyond. These paintings have their own visual voice, their own relations, their own materiel agency. Autonomy. Let’s dance. 

Traces of hours of labour embedded in cotton canvas. Ancient work. These paintings didn’t paint themselves. The painters hope. The light lit in an Indonesian cave 51.200 years ago. Talk about religion. Inner and outer landscapes. Please - the cliches are true. Multiple dimensions - is consciousness one of them? Perhaps also fundamental? With these paintings, a non-dual approach to the practice. Forget the head for a moment. Let your body think. There is nothing to step into. You have already arrived. Forget the head. These paintings are not riddles. There is nothing to solve. Sit with them. Like trees. Or rocks. Or friends. Or foes. Or horizons. 

- Jesper Elg
embodied transcendence through painting, 2025

As tranquillity vanishes, the “gift of listening” goes missing, as does the “community of listeners.”

- Byung-Chul Han
The Burnout Society, 2015

Maximillian Brown, born 1994, United Kingdom, holds a BA (Hons) in Mixed Media Fine Art from the University of Westminster (2014 – 2017). He currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Recent solo and duo exhibitions include Through the Absent Landscape, Public Service, Stockholm, Sweden, 2024. I See a Darkness, with Rose Eken, Charlotte Fogh Gallery, Aarhus, Denmark, 2022. A Vagrant’s Paradise, Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2022. An Arduous Crux at OUTPOST, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2021 and To Not Swim Would Only Mean to Sink (Methadone Comfort), Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2020.