Modern Portraits

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​"Maxwell Stevens perfectly positions himself midway between figurative and abstract styles, skillfully and sensitively blending the two. His works arise from an interplay of emotions, ideas, and images, sometimes captured by chance and then elaborated by his creative mind. Step by step, idea by idea, Stevens generates multiple “moments” that become the subjects of his series of works, accompanied by philosophical reflections on specific themes, psychological aspects, the emotional tone of the imagery, and that cathartic emotional release that manifests through abstraction, as he himself has said." 

-Beatrice Cordaro, Curator​​

"Regarding Stevens’ technique, many aspects stand out: from his inspiration, to his stylistic evolution, to his painterly gestures and color choices. His work, extremely analytical and coherent, treats brushstrokes almost as if they were written words; each brushstroke becomes a sentence that overlaps with others to compose visual narratives. Stevens’ brushstrokes are soft and balanced, but each possesses a different intensity: sometimes lighter, sometimes denser; sometimes slow, sometimes fast; sometimes careful, sometimes hasty. This approach makes his pictorial language particularly rich and dynamic. This reflection, together with other insights, has guided Stevens in creating and refining his personal technique, inspired by the great Italian, Spanish, and Dutch masters without ever slipping into mere quotation. This is a significant peculiarity: Maxwell Stevens draws lessons from the past but reworks them originally, building his own artistic signature through individual and in-depth study." 

-Cordaro​​​