MAX ROWE.
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Max Flow Art

Painting / Independent art practice

Explore the collectionExhibitions and press

My contributionArtistic concept · Painting and material experimentation · Exhibitions and live painting · Independent business

The project in five slides

01 / Finding my voice

Two lifelong practices, brought together.

I’ve painted and skied for as long as I can remember. I studied studio art at CU Boulder, taught skiing in Vail, and guided skiing in Japan.

Combining those experiences helped me find my voice as an artist. Skiing gave me a subject I understood through movement, feeling, and years of personal experience.

Flying Pink: a skier in the air on bright pink skis against a speckled blue, pink and white background.
Flying Pink · Acrylic on canvas, 36 × 36 in
Max smiling on a snowy ski tour in mirrored goggles and a cap, a log cabin and steep peaks behind him.
Out skiing
02 / Painting the feeling

The focus inside the movement.

I’m interested in the moment when a skier is completely focused while everything around them is in motion.

My paintings combine illustrative drawing and dark lines with palette-knife texture, splatter, and bold color. Those choices help me express the energy of skiing and the feeling of flow: being present and responding to what comes next.

Perfect Landing: a skier in a red jacket and goggles bursting toward the viewer through white and violet spray.
Perfect Landing · Acrylic on canvas, 36 × 36 in
Close-up of Perfect Landing: the goggles and hood outlined in dark lines, flecked with yellow and white splatter.
Detail: dark lines and splatter
Close-up of Perfect Landing: snow built from dragged palette-knife strokes of white, grey and ochre, dotted with violet splatter.
Detail: palette-knife texture
03 / An unexpected discovery

Following the color somewhere new.

I started experimenting with fluorescent paint to capture the bright colors of ski clothing and equipment, especially the neon palette associated with the 1980s.

The way those paints responded to blacklight became an unexpected and delightful discovery. I began developing a style that works in both regular light and blacklight, with each revealing different qualities in the painting.

A mixture of the two creates another viewing experience—an atmosphere I think of as alpenglow.

Baddie Braids under regular light: a skier with long braids, goggles and skis on her shoulder against a yellow background.
Regular light
Baddie Braids under blacklight: the fluorescent paint glows in violet, cyan and pink against a dark background.
Blacklight
Baddie Braids under a mix of regular light and blacklight: the background turns pink and violet and the colors begin to glow.
Mixed light: alpenglow
Baddie Braids, photographed under regular light, blacklight and a mix of the two
04 / Bringing art into the experience

Making the process part of the event.

Live painting lets people encounter the work as it develops. The painting becomes part of the event, giving guests a chance to watch, ask questions, and connect with the process.

I’ve painted live at the CU Benson Society Gala and at an SSCV fundraising event, bringing my artistic practice into the kinds of shared experiences I’ve also worked to produce professionally.

Max standing beside a large skier painting on an easel outdoors while snow falls.
With one of my paintings, outdoors in falling snow. Not taken at either live-painting event.
05 / Celebrating what we stand to lose

Caring about skiing means caring about its future.

Skiing has shaped my life, and I want my paintings to share the excitement, beauty, and connection I find in it.

It also depends on an environment that is changing. My hope is that celebrating skiing through art—especially in a way that resonates with younger people—encourages others to care about preserving the snow and mountain environments that make it possible.

That connection also informs how I participate in the community, including contributing paintings to support Ski and Snowboard Club Vail and Friends of CAIC.

Cover of Covered Bridge magazine, Winter + Spring 2023-24, featuring Max’s painting of a skier in red carving through snow, with the line “Max Rowe on Art + Nature.”
My painting on the cover of Covered Bridge, Winter + Spring 2023-24
The project

Max Flow Art brings together two lifelong parts of my life: painting and skiing. After studying studio art at the University of Colorado Boulder and spending years teaching skiing in Vail and guiding in Japan, I found my artistic voice by combining them.

My acrylic paintings explore the energy of skiing and the focus of being fully in the moment. Illustrative lines, palette-knife texture, splattered paint, and bold color help me translate that feeling onto canvas. In some works, fluorescent paint adds another dimension as the lighting changes.

I’ve shared the work through art festivals, gallery exhibitions, live painting, and an independent online business. It is also a way for me to participate in the ski community, drawing inspiration from its people and supporting organizations that help sustain it.

Max Flow Art in 15 seconds. The room scenes are illustrative.

Selected exhibitions, live painting & community

Selected exhibitions and displays

  • Royal Street Fine Art Gallery, Aspen, Colorado. Exhibited work.
  • Mountain Flow Art Show, September 18, 2024. Group exhibition and art auction benefiting the Ski and Snowboard Club Vail scholarship fund, curated by Curate Art & Curiosities.
  • Jack and Sage pop-up, Lionshead Village, winter 2025–26. Artwork displayed through Near and Far Gallery.
  • Selected 2023 festivals: Downtown Aspen Art Festival, Beaver Creek Art Festival, Keystone River Run Art Festival, Steamboat Springs Festival of the Arts, Avon Arts Festival, Dillon Arts Festival, and Copper’s Union Peak Music Festival.

Live painting

  • CU Benson Society Gala, April 27, 2024.
  • SSCV fundraising event.

Community contributions

  • SSCV scholarship benefit auction. A painting sold for $7,500 at the September 2024 event.
  • Friends of CAIC Benefit Bash, November 2024, Riverwalk Center, Breckenridge. Donated an original painting; the winning bidder could choose between the skier painting “Mellow Yellow” and the snowboarder painting “Wave Rider.”
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