Dimensions: 10" W by 12" H

About the Artist:

Max was born and raised in Portsmouth, NH and attended Portsmouth High School, where he excelled in art and math. He studied sociology at Wesleyan University, then screenwriting for film at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. Following the typical filmmaker path, he moved to Los Angeles, where he lived for three years before realizing the city was a terrible fit. He packed up and moved to Chicago, where he lived for nearly three years, during which time he worked as an after-school educator and began his artistic endeavors anew in pursuit of writing and illustrating comic books. He currently works for Newmarket NH-based company Gutermann, Inc., and continues to make art on the side.

About this piece:

"It Can Happen Here" is a combination of a leisurely drive underneath Memorial Bridge in downtown Portsmouth, and a chilling photograph of a group of masked soldiers overlooking a BLM protest in Hollywood Blvd. Having grown up in Portsmouth and subsequently living in two major cities before returning, the "Portsmouth bubble" is now more real to me than ever. Hearteningly, we've seen we have members of our community who will march and demand justice for the tragic events in Minneapolis, Louisville, Kenosha, and elsewhere, but there are still many who seem content with the current administration's ever-increasing efforts to divide the United States along illusory race, class, and party lines, or who are convinced it's "not their problem." The shocking use of private police in unmarked uniforms to snuff out "violent protests" in Seattle and Chicago was just the beginning. Should we allow these echoes of facism to continue elsewhere, it can, and will, happen here.