Maynard Luterman – Artist

Triptych Series – Concept and Process 

This triptych explores three stages of human existence: aging, death, and what may follow. I initially struggled with how personal to make the work. While I wanted the viewer to actively engage and work to access meaning, I also aimed to create something broadly relatable. Feedback pushed me toward a more personal approach, reinforcing the idea that personal work often carries the strongest universal resonance.

Each painting evolved differently. The first, focused on aging, came most naturally. The second, addressing death, felt more detached, and that emotional distance is evident in the final result. The third, centered on what happens after death, became the most affecting. The word loved emerged as a central element. Its use in the past tense became significant, suggesting not only that we are loved, but that over time, even those who were deeply loved may be forgotten. I reflected on my own parents, who I loved, and considered how memory fades across generations. My children may remember them, but eventually, who will? They will have been loved, and then, likely, forgotten.

Painting 1 – Aging

This work began as a mixed media collage built from fragments of memory. The central vertical strip initially featured a single portrait, but the concept expanded to better express aging. Using AI-generated imagery, I created versions of myself as both a young man and an older figure. These images were sanded and partially obscured to suggest the erosion of memory over time.

Scattered letters appear across the surface, representing the mind’s ongoing process of constructing and deconstructing thought. While the composition was conceptually strong, it initially lacked cohesion. A taping and spray paint technique was introduced, creating layered structure and visual unity. This process added depth and energy, producing a surface that becomes more complex and engaging when viewed in person.

It was my first attempt at spray painting.

36x48 inches Mixed Media

Triptych Series – Painting 2 Death

This painting began with an abstract expressionist work I created earlier in the semester, one that I was strongly drawn to but would not have presented on its own. Incorporating it into the triptych allowed it to take on new meaning within a larger conceptual framework.

My background in poetry influenced this piece significantly. I am drawn to the way poetry distills complex ideas into precise, resonant language. For this reason, I incorporated texts by Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, both of whom confront death not as an abrupt end, but as a passage or transformation.

36x48 inches Mixed Media

Emily Dickinson’s Because I could not stop for Death:

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—’tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity—

Walt Whitman’s On Death and Dying:

O living always, always dying!
O the burials of me past and present,
O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever;
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn
and look at where I cast them,
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.

Both poems frame death as continuity rather than finality. Dickinson presents death as a quiet companion, while Whitman emphasizes the ongoing cycle of living and dying that defines human existence.

The physical construction of the piece was labor-intensive. Each letter was individually painted and placed, requiring careful attention to rhythm and balance across the surface. Even after this process, the composition felt fragmented. To unify the painting, I returned to the taping and spray paint technique used in the first work. This not only created visual cohesion within the piece but also linked it materially and formally to the rest of the triptych.

Color adjustments played an important role in resolving the composition. The introduction of additional red helped balance the visual weight and intensified the emotional tone of the work. To connect this painting to the third panel, I introduced the word loved along with the first use of wool. The wool, treated with spray paint, becomes partially obscured and nearly disappears when viewed up close, reinforcing themes of presence, absence, and the difficulty of holding onto meaning in the face of mortality.

Triptych Series – The Third Painting Loved

This painting is the most personal of the three. It began with the word loved, a word often spoken at funerals—“he was loved” or “she was loved.” I became increasingly focused on its use in the past tense and what that implies. Does loved acknowledge a life once held in care, or does it quietly signal that the person is no longer actively held in memory? I began to question what becomes of love after death. Is it sustained, or does it gradually disappear?

These questions led me to reflect on my own parents and my memories of them. I considered what happens when I die—whether my children will continue to carry those memories, and what happens when they, in turn, are gone. The work confronts the possibility that love, like memory, may fade across generations. To have been loved does not necessarily mean to remain remembered.

Material choices reinforce these ideas. Mulch is incorporated to reference the earth and the physical return of the body. Wool, arranged in vine-like forms, suggests organic growth and entanglement, but also obscures what lies beneath. The surface partially conceals photographic images of people who have died and individuals I have loved. These elements are intentionally difficult to fully see, mirroring the erosion of memory over time. What remains is fragmented, obscured, and uncertain—much like the persistence of love itself.

36x48 inches Mixed Media

Improvisation

Artist Statement

Improvisation celebrates the energy and freedom of music. Flowing piano keys, a guitar, an upright bass, and a saxophone move through a field of bold color, creating a visual rhythm that echoes the spontaneity of a live performance. The painting is less about individual instruments than the conversation between them.

Using thick, textured paint and simplified forms, I sought to translate sound into color and movement. Like jazz itself, the work embraces improvisation, reminding us that some of the most meaningful moments come when we trust instinct and allow creativity to unfold naturally.

30x 40 inches Acrylic in canvas

Woman on a Tightrope

This painting was a gift to my partner, who kept it in her office for more than twenty years. Over time, it became more than a work of art; it became a quiet reminder of resilience and perseverance. Looking at it today, I see a woman suspended above a vibrant city, moving forward on a wire no wider than the choices and uncertainties that shape our lives. The city below represents the complexity of the world, while the solitary figure embodies the courage required to continue despite fear, responsibility, and the unknown.

The crescent moon, the empty birdcage, and the inscription Rest in Peace Harry weave themes of memory, freedom, and loss into the composition. These symbols do not tell a single story but invite viewers to reflect on the people we carry with us and the experiences that continue to shape us long after they have passed. Woman on a Tightrope is ultimately a tribute to quiet strength—the grace to keep moving forward, one careful step at a time, even when there is no certainty beneath our feet.

30x 40 inches Acrylic in canvas

Title: What We Serve

By: Dr. Maynard Luterman

The image of the severed head has existed throughout art history as a symbol of sacrifice, judgment, truth, and societal fear. One of the most enduring examples is the story of John the Baptist, whose head was presented on a platter after he challenged authority and social power. Over the centuries, artists have returned to this image not simply for its violence, but for what it represents: the punishment of those whose existence, voice, or identity unsettles the culture around them. The head on a platter becomes both an offering and a warning, a human life transformed into an object for public consumption.

This work reinterprets that historical image within contemporary American culture. Here, the platter becomes a pizza box, an object tied to convenience, consumption, and disposability. The head rests on the Declaration of Independence, directly over the words “We the People,” while the outside of the box is painted as the American flag and the interior carries the colors of the LGBTQ and transgender pride flag and an image of a wall. The juxtaposition intentionally collapses sacred history, political symbolism, and popular culture into a single unsettling image.

The piece questions who is truly protected within the ideals of American democracy and who remains vulnerable to social judgment and exclusion. The contrast between the patriotic exterior and the imagery hidden within reflects the tension between national identity and personal identity, between public declarations of equality and the lived realities of marginalized individuals. By referencing the visual language of martyrdom, the work suggests that bodies and identities continue to be politicized, displayed, debated, and consumed in public life. Rather than offering a direct answer, the piece asks viewers to consider whether contemporary society has evolved beyond symbolic persecution, or whether it has merely changed the form of the platter.

Mixed-media assemblage: acrylic paint on cardboard and plastic. 16 xinches x 10 inches

As a Diptych

Title - Between Cure and Consequence

Artist Statement

This diptych examines the fragile space where medicine, addiction, compassion, and control intersect. One painting marks the moment of entry; the other reflects the systems and relationships that sustain or interrupt that journey. Syringes, pills, hands, and anonymous figures become symbols rather than illustrations, inviting viewers to move beyond stereotypes and consider the complexity of human suffering.

Rather than condemning or celebrating medicine, the works ask a more difficult question: How do we distinguish what heals us from what ultimately possesses us? The answer is left unresolved, because for many people the line is neither fixed nor visible.

36 inches by 36 inches

Lost to Time in Seven Beats

I worked for over forty years in the emergency room. I have seen dementia of all types in people who were old, and young, previously well and unwell, This piece is personal. My mother-in-law died this year having shown a steady deterioration in her testing as Alzheimer’s raided stole and left no memories. I have used the serial sevens and clock tests for years. The sadness each time someone failed was new and heart breaking.

The title draws on two parallel systems of measurement: the passage of time and the rhythm of seven beats. “Seven beats” alludes to both the uncommon musical meter that disrupts our expectation of rhythm and the serial-sevens task used in the Mini-Mental Status Examination, where repeatedly subtracting seven measures attention, concentration, and cognitive function. What is routine for one mind becomes increasingly difficult for another.

The painting layers fractured clocks, fragmented portraits, handwritten calculations, and the fading command to “forget” into a visual landscape where time no longer moves in a coherent line. The clocks cease to measure hours and instead become markers of disorientation. Faces dissolve into memory, numbers lose their certainty, and chronology fragments into isolated moments. Rather than illustrating dementia, the work invites viewers to experience its altered perception of time. Memory is not simply erased; it slips out of sequence, rhythm falters, and identity becomes increasingly difficult to hold. In the end, this work asks what remains when we are not only lost to time, but when time itself is lost within us.

36 inches x 48 inches

It's Always About You

Artist Statement

It's Always About You examines the tension between individuality and self-absorption. Composed of multiple silhouetted profiles arranged in a circular form, the sculpture offers no single point of focus. As the viewer moves around the work, faces emerge, dissolve, and overlap, suggesting that identity is shaped not only by who we are, but by the perspectives we choose to see.

The black and white stripes fragment each profile, interrupting the illusion of a complete self. The visual rhythm creates moments where faces disappear into pattern before reappearing from another angle, echoing the way ego can obscure genuine connection. The title is intentionally ambiguous. It may be an accusation, a confession, or an observation about a culture increasingly centered on the self. By requiring the viewer to circle the sculpture to experience it fully, the work asks whether we are truly seeing others—or simply searching for ourselves in every encounter.

Acrylic on cut and assembled wood.

16 inches x 36 inches

She Believed She Could

Everyone thought she was crazy because she was the only one who could hear the music. Through this wire figure, I explore the courage it takes to follow an inner rhythm that others cannot understand. Her outstretched arms, lifted leg, and wild hair give physical form to the joy of moving freely despite the judgment around her. The coiled wire holds both tension and energy, suggesting the struggle of being misunderstood alongside the freedom of trusting oneself. The inscription, “She believed she could so she did,” affirms her choice to keep dancing. This sculpture celebrates those who risk standing apart to remain faithful to what moves them.

“Formed and coiled metal wire on a glass base.” 12 x 4 inches

We The People

This work strips language to its barest form. Words that normally define identity and belonging are reduced to fragments, becoming almost invisible against a white field. The viewer must search for them, completing the work through the act of looking.

The piece asks a simple but unresolved question: When does “we” become “them”? The missing letters are intentional. They invite us to consider how identity is constructed, how communities are divided, and how easily certainty dissolves into a question. In the end, the painting offers no conclusion—only the possibility that the boundaries separating us are far less permanent than we imagine.

Mixed media 30x 40 inches

1984

Inspired by George Orwell's 1984, this work explores the fragile relationship between truth, freedom, and power. A television with watchful eyes dominates an American flag while passages from Orwell's novel weave through the image, suggesting that surveillance and manipulated information are no longer distant possibilities but familiar realities. Rather than offering political answers, the painting asks viewers to consider who shapes the stories we accept as truth—and what is lost when truth itself becomes contested.

Mixed media assemblage,  30 x 40 inches

American Flag

Kelsey Flores and Dr. Maynard Luterman are pleased to have created a collaborative work for the July 4th 2026 art exhibit: a 6-foot by 4-foot American flag constructed from 200 Campbell’s soup cans. To create the work, the cans were opened and emptied, and all of the soup was donated to the Fort Myers Rescue Mission.

This work reimagines one of America’s most recognizable symbols as a reflection on consumer culture, identity, and the values that define contemporary life. The traditional red and white stripes are formed from rows of Campbell’s soup cans, while the union is represented by fifty opened cans, emphasizing mass production, consumption, and the everyday products that shape our shared experience. Drawing upon the legacy of Pop Art and Andy Warhol, the piece explores the intersection of patriotism and commerce, inviting viewers to consider whether national identity is increasingly shaped by civic ideals or by the brands and products that permeate daily life. By combining a powerful national emblem with an iconic consumer object, the work encourages reflection on citizenship, capitalism, abundance, and the American Dream.

“Mixed-media assemblage with Campbell’s soup cans and 3D-printed elements.”

Make America Colorful Again™