Painter Andrew Max Modlin's Large Scale Dreamlike Landscapes to be featured in a Pop-Up Solo

  Andrew Max Modlin, Joshua Tree
 

By NOAH BECKER May 17, 2025

L.A.-based painter Andrew Max Modlin has a pop-up solo exhibition opening “THROUGH THE BRUSH” opening Saturday June 7 in West Hollywood with an artist reception from 4-9PM. The show, to be curated by Peter Frank, focuses on Modlin’s large scale, brilliantly colored landscapes of images inspired by his travels. He joins me here for a conversation...

You’ve had a successful design career, co-founding MedMen and creating the look of Kreation Juicery—what ultimately pulled you back to painting full time?

Design, branding, and cannabis took up around 15 years of my life, so when I was in between projects for the first time during COVID, I decided I was going to give myself a 1-year break to see what I wanted to do next. The fact that I wasn’t painting haunted me all those years because I always felt like that was my life calling. While I got to hone my design skills, painting was the skill that I had developed and practiced up until I went into business, and now that skill, partially, was being wasted.

Not knowing what I would do next, I packed up my life and moved to Amsterdam. In that time, I developed how I draw digitally on the iPad. After doing this for a while, I was biking in the Vondelpark, and it came to me that I needed to paint in this same style that I was drawing in. Unfortunately, some other forces caused me to have to come back to LA at that moment. So I did, and I set up a studio and focused on how I could translate my digital sketches to the canvas.

Andrew Max Modlin, Emerald Escape

“Through the Brush” features large-scale works built entirely by hand, layer by layer. What does that slow, physical process give you that digital design never could?

I grew up at the transition from analog to digital, and this created an interesting tension in what was next for art. So while I actually do the sketches digitally in the moment, it’s that transition back to analog that is representative of my own life.

The way I paint is very graphic, and it was clearly influenced by my time spent working in design. While I mimic the graphic layers that are applied, the difference becomes the build-up of the layers. As the layers build, it becomes harder to control the paint; this creates an organic chaos on the painting that you cannot get digitally. You cannot really see it from the photos, but there is an extreme thickness and almost sculptural element to my paintings. I would say that larger paintings have 5 plus gallons of paint on them.

Andrew Max Modlin, Tread Soflty Here
 

Your landscapes feel like portals—otherworldly yet grounded in real places. How do your travels shape what ends up on the canvas?

Traveling is one of the most important things to me because it allows you to see outside your bubble and understand how diverse the world really is. I love to be immersed in the culture and cuisine and see how that changes my perspective on how I would make a drawing or painting. So now as part of my process I plan on traveling to places where I intend to find something that I want to paint. I immerse myself in what palette the location makes me feel and that immediately comes out in my drawings. It’s bringing that experience back to my studio that makes each painting so diverse because it really has the essence of that location in it.

Peter Frank described your work as something viewers can “optically ramble through.” Do you think of your paintings as spaces to get lost in, or are they more about what they pull out of the viewer emotionally?

In a way both. When I choose to make a painting, I start with something that I must have a special connection to, a place that I want to go back to escape to myself. When I first started painting in this style, I was going through a challenging time in my life, so in that way it starts as an initial escape from reality for me. When my studio is filled with colorful paintings I feel like I’m in another place and it is very relaxing.

The viewer starts by getting lost within the painting, having their own escape. Slowly more and more details within the painting come out. They see hidden textures, colors and layers that can only be seen up close. As they back away the full picture forms but then they realize that the painting has awakened a desire within them.

Pond
 

There’s a clear tension in your work between structure and chaos—grids, forms, and sharp contrast disrupted by neon and texture. Is that a reflection of how you see the world, or how you move through it?

I have an internal tension between order, routine, chaos, and emotion. The balance between a normal life of routine and the life I live of chaos as an entrepreneur and an artist creates an inner dialogue within me every day. I don’t think I’ll ever paint realistically or abstractly. The challenge for me is to create work that reflects how I see the world, filtered through my experience, but still real enough for the viewer to understand what I want them to see. With my current focus on paths, I hope the viewer will come on that journey with me.

You live and work in West Hollywood, but Amsterdam seems to be your creative second home. What does that city give you as an artist that LA doesn’t?

I actually think about this a lot, because I do have the intention to move there at some point, and the follow-up question is always why. First, it has to do with the city’s relation to nature. In LA if the weather is nice, you don’t go have a picnic in the park. There is something so important to life about having a better connection with nature and the effects it has on the body. Second, there is just the classic romantic beauty of these older European cities. The walking in the “gas” lit street lamp (now LED to mimic) creates lighting and emotion that is just not found here in LA. Third is the Dutch word Gezellig. While there is no direct translation, in a sense, it’s about slowing down and enjoying life. Something that I don’t think people in Los Angeles do, and I think that is a tension that I have within my own life that I need to slow down and be happy.

 Camino Encanto
 

After spending time shaping cultural aesthetics through branding, what does it mean to now create entirely on your own terms—and what do you hope people feel when they step into this new world you’ve painted?

Branding is all about creating an identity for something. Even if you have full control over the brand, there are self-imposed limitations so that the identity is clear and recognizable. Sticking to these guidelines is critical as it led MedMen to become a globally identifiable brand, and even the specific color red was associated with MedMen within the cannabis space.

In many ways, being an artist is all about creating a brand. Then launching that brand into the art world, and being recognized for that style. So I have thought a lot about how I am presenting myself and what my brand is. That being said, I hope people see my paintings as these colorful impasto works where they can be transported away even for a second.

What’s next for you?

I have my show in Los Angeles opening June 7th, and then I am doing a show in Amsterdam on Aug. 1 where all the paintings will be painted in Amsterdam over the month prior to celebrate Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary. Then I’m doing a 2-month trip through Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand for the inspiration for my next series. WM

“Through the Brush,” opens Saturday, June 7 with an artist’s reception from 4-9PM.  There will be light food, libations, and a DJ  on hand.  The show runs through June 21, when there will be a closing reception, also from 4-9PM,  The address is 411 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90048. In between, the show will be open to the public from Wednesday –  Saturday, 12P-5PM.