Max Sharam

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Max Sharam is an Australian-American multi-disciplinary artist and singer-songwriter. In the mid-1990s, Sharam had three top 40 hit singles in Australia, "

Sharam spent several years travelling around Europe where she initially made a living from busking. Sharam, while based in Rome, was part of a bohemian community of artists that included Kurt Wenner known for his groundbreaking street art.^[1][2] Whilst performing in Florence, Italy, Carlo Picone, a RAI news journalist and producer, invited her to audition for Forza Venite Gente, a hit Italian rock opera, starring Oreste Lionello, for which she landed a lead role.^[1] The musical toured across Europe for two years.^[1] Other Italian Theatre productions engaged her, including Kolbe directed by Polish film director – Krzysztof Zanussi and Tadeaus Bradecki. She received the Star of the Year award at Genoa's Cole Porter Festival, recorded and released a dance extended play, "I'm Occupied". Her story was documented in an Italian television program, La Ragazza con la Chitarra ("Girl with the Guitar"),^[1] shown on RAI TV.

Climax and comedy

Sharam spent a year in Japan studying Taiko drums^[2] and fronting a Japanese band Climax based in Hiroshima before returning to Australia where she worked as a stand-up comedian, performing regularly on the Sydney Comedy Circuit. She also appeared on Red Faces, Hey Hey it's Saturday TV.

1990s

Sharam started a number of small-time Sydney bands, Minx and Gaudi, and performed regularly in an all electronica outfit, Fleshworld.^{[citation needed]}

In 1992, Sharam performed her self-penned song "

"Coma" was voted the eighth-most popular song on radio station, Triple J's Hottest 100 of 1994.^[6] Her debut album, A Million Year Girl, was released in May 1995, achieving gold accreditation^[7] and reaching No. 9 in the ARIA Albums Chart.^[5]

At the

In 2000 Sharam moved to Manhattan, New York where she continued to write. She wrote and staged her first one-woman show, MadmoselleMax, for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In January 2005, she performed "Butterfly Suicide" at the Hong Kong Fringe Festival. The one-woman P'Opera (a "Virtual Variety/Multi Media Musical") featured the misadventures of "ill Soprano", a highly-strung opera diva who takes to the streets at night singing.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006 Sharam portrayed Jean Lee in the musical The Hanging of Jean Lee, which was based on a biographical book of poems by Jordie Albiston. The score was written by Australian composer Andree Greenwell and the musical played at Sydney Opera House alongside Hugo Race.^[9]

Sharam performed and produced the music for 2006

In 2008 Sharam continued to tread new ground and experiment with platforms, creating video performance based art. She was invited to join the New York Foundation for the Arts, a not-for-profit arts organization, panel for Video Art. In February 2009 Sharam returned to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with her show Songs and Stories from My Suitcase.[10] and followed it up with another more experimental production ″Bushpygmalion″ which featured Sharam's animated artworks in a semi-autobiographical tale. In June, 2017 her performance art was part of an exhibit in Fabrik der Künste in Hamburg, Germany as part of a retrospective for German painter, Tania Jacobi ^{[citation needed]} and then in September 2018 as part of the inaugural Ballarat Biennale of Australia Art (BOAA).^{[citation needed]}

2010–present

Sharam is a Master of Fine Art (MFA) and studied Animation Direction at Australian Film Television & Radio School (AFTRS, Sydney) before graduating from RMIT's Centre for Animation & Interactive Media (AIM) in 2011.^[