Max Sansing 'Rapture' Artist Proof Available

Artist: Max Sansing
Title: Rapture
Medium: Deckled Giclee Print
Size: 36 x 38 Inches
Edition: A/P
Price: $625

Max Sansing is a Chicago born muralist and fine artist whose vivid portraits fuse photorealistic technique with the explosive colour of street art. Raised in Avalon Park by two creative parents, he began drawing at four and joined graffiti crews as a teen, painting permission walls across the city and learning to handle aerosol, markers and rollers with precision. That early training in scale and speed still feeds his current practice, where oil painted faces emerge through swirling flames, neon clouds and cascading streaks of turquoise, emerald or magenta.

After two years at the American Academy of Art, Sansing translated his graffiti hunger into monumental murals that now span Chicago, Denver, Boston and beyond. His figures, often everyday neighbours or local schoolchildren, are rendered in hyperreal detail yet bathed in supernatural hues, a choice he calls “humanism over colourism”. Recurring symbols such as skeleton keys pay homage to childhood rides on the elevated train with his CTA employed father, suggesting that every person holds the tool to unlock new pathways.

Community anchors every project. He has partnered with Nike, Virgil Abloh and the Chicago Fire FC to fund youth programmes, and his 2024 mural at Michele Clark Prep Magnet School turns a brick wall into a beacon of possibility visible from the Eisenhower Expressway. Whether painting Fred Hampton, Frankie Knuckles or an unknown teen, Sansing scales individual stories to civic monuments, reminding viewers that culture is power and that the next revolution might begin with a spray can and an open wall.