information

Statement

I make things to solve something—sometimes a problem, sometimes a feeling, sometimes a memory. Working with my hands allows me to focus, to move through questions in real time. I’ve never wanted to work behind a desk. Thinking becomes form. It lives in space.

My earliest encounters with art were tactile and personal: a ceramic class at thirteen, a time capsule project with my dad, the quiet influence of Japanese design woven into the house I grew up in. These experiences taught me that objects can carry history, mystery, and intention. That material doesn’t just shape an object—it shapes how it is read.

I gravitate toward clay, wood, metal, slipcast forms—materials that hold presence and resist easy interpretation. In my sculptural tableaus, I use familiar motifs—tractors, busts, chainsaws, teacups—not to illustrate but to complicate. These objects are not symbols. They are provocations. They carry cultural residue, but I reconfigure them into something strange, tactile, and quietly theatrical.

I want viewers to feel amused, nostalgic, mystified, familiar. I want them to misread, to pause, to laugh. The work does not ask to be understood—it asks to be experienced. Each tableau is a stage, not a story. Meaning is not built in advance; it emerges through arrangement, through proximity, through attention.

My furniture and sculptural work are part of the same conversation. They share material logic, emotional intent, and a sensitivity to form. Whether building a table or assembling a tableau, I work with objects that feel familiar but behave unexpectedly.

I don’t consciously avoid clichés—I work with them as raw material. Over time, I’ve become more confident in that approach. I no longer ask whether something is being done “correctly.” There is no correct. That realization has been freeing. The work is most alive in its ambiguity, its humor, its quiet resistance. I make what I need to make, and I trust the objects to speak for themselves.

Background

Max Leiber lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
Born 1956.
BA in Fine Art, University of California, Davis (1979).
Worked with Agnes Bourne Design Showroom, San Francisco (1984–1996), developing and selling custom furniture.

Studio

All works shown are available unless noted otherwise.

Custom furniture and ceramic works are available upon request.

Pricing is available upon request.

Contact

maxleiber@gmail.com
503-820-8010