max clearly | footstool (waiting room) | 2025 | 16" x 16" x 17" | ash, Locals sz. 10.5, hardware
- These stools are hand made, largely with hand tools I made myself for the purpose of making these shapes.
- These works are functional sculptures. They are intended for use and intended to gain the patina of time.
- Both stools are wearing size 10.5 Locals slipper bottoms. Should you decide you'd like a different color bottom, slipper pads can be swapped out via the (3) 1/4"x20 screws located beneath the legs.
- Like any piece of furniture, occasional care is recommended. Wiping down with a LIGHTLY damp cloth or neutral cleaning spray is fine. Harsh chemical cleaners are not recommended.
- Both stools are finished with Osmo Poly-x hardwax oil. If needed, refinishing should be done with the same material. It blends into itself very well.
- Ash is very dense and very hard. The ash footstool is a tank and will likely show little signs of use over time.
The exhibition presents artists who explore themes of place, belonging, and hybrid experiences of identity. The works wryly examine under-recognized details of Hawaii ephemera, calling to mind how objects anchor us in a sense of home. They parse identities that are often mixed, with relationships to places that traverse local, indigenous, hapa, and foreign. What is a “local” artist and who can make “local” work? These artists challenge that narrow concept and propose a synthesis of multiple influences where excitement is found in the remix, rather than in a single isolated identity.
Small details function like a secret key - family photographs or clutter at an auntie’s house - that unlock a type of nostalgia. There is an ode to Asian immigrant resourcefulness and a reverence paid to everyday objects that would otherwise be overlooked. They push back at the fetishized display of our tropical surroundings while elevating common scenes to a kind of magic. These artists ask the question that many in the diaspora hold dear: whether one’s relationship to home is fixed or mutable, real or imagined.
Max Cleary (b. 1991) is a Los Angeles and Honolulu based artist working across the mediums of photography, sculpture, and painting. He received his MFA from the University of California Los Angeles. His work has been exhibited across Los Angeles, Honolulu, Seattle, Santa Barbara, and Portland, with recent solo presentations at The LINE Hotel (LA), Other Places Art Fair (LA), Winston’s (LA), and Kaiao Space (Honolulu).
Cleary’s practice hovers between factual and imaginary, between utilitarian and absurd. Driven by interests in the scientific and symbolic roots of everyday knowledge and experience, his works function simultaneously as narrative devices, historical documents, utilitarian objects, and pseudo-scientific visual aids.