Maximillion Leszczynski (they/them) is an interdisciplinary trans non-binary artist, tattooer, and emerging scholar based in Tiohtià:ke / Montréal, Canada. Currently applying for an MA in Art History, their research investigates how contemporary tattooing can be situated within craft theory, examining its intersections with queer and trans histories, contemporary aesthetics, and archival practices to challenge conventional boundaries within art historical discourse.
With over seven years of experience in the tattoo industry across Canada, the United States, and Europe, Maximillion works primarily with queer and trans clients, centering their practice on creating safer spaces for bodily transformation, expression, and reclamation. Their tattoo work directly informs their personal art practice, which spans mixed-media drawing and textile-based sculpture. Through these mediums, they create abstract, colourful “landscapes” that translate internal and external experiences into an ongoing, intimate archive.
Alongside their tattoo practice, Maximillion has exhibited in galleries across Canada, produced original works and commissions, completed illustration projects for published poetry compilations, and contributed to zine publications with the Ottawa Design Club. Their commitment to research and material inquiry extends into their academic pursuits as well: they have completed survey courses in contemporary art, multiple textile and fibre-based courses, and are currently studying French at the intermediate level through the province of Québec.
Artist Statement
I like the idea that rolling hills are actually rolling; that they are something both lived and imagined. The landscape is not only physical, but becomes a site where perception and memory merge into form.
In my interdisciplinary practice, I use the concept of the landscape as a medium through which I can translate my own internal and external experiences of the world. The terrain of feeling becomes rendered as gesture and form, and is ultimately catalogued and preserved in a perpetual intimate archive, born out of an anxiety knowing that memory is tangible and fallible. Scientific method and imagery play a large influence in the way I experiment with materials while exploring the ways they interact and can be manipulated to best render and preserve my experiences. In my mixed media drawing, I produce vivid agar-plate-like drawings to capture memory, and in sculpture, I play with found materials and textiles in varying tones and colours to produce small hand-held objects; fragments of worlds passing me by.
I also have the pleasure of working with clients in contemporary abstract tattooing; modifying impermanent landscapes with permanent action. It is important for me that the client is a part of the process, accomplishing a collaborative outcome. These experiences shape my practice, as much as my personal encounters with the world. Why not try to record as much of it as I can?
It's a nice view.