In Gentleman X, Peter Maier departs from the industrial sublime of chrome and chassis to explore the human body as a surface of equal complexity. The work is executed with the same meticulous technique that has defined his practice—layered automotive paint, built up over aluminum, to create an illusion of impossible realism.

The subject, poised and unapologetically bare, is rendered with a clarity that borders on the forensic, yet never loses its humanity. His body, densely tattooed, becomes both canvas and archive—recording a private mythology in ink. There is no overt narrative, no affectation—only a confrontation with presence, control, and identity.

By applying industrial materials to the intimate scale of portraiture, Maier collapses the boundaries between body and machine, surface and depth. Gentleman X is less a portrait than it is an object of contemplation—cool, immaculate, and undeniably human.

“GENTELMAN X”

2011

Dimensions: 77” X 60”

Medium: Axalta Cromax AT on Aluminum

Artist: Peter Maier