Rachel Maclean (artist)

Rachel Maclean
Maclean in 2021
Born
Edinburgh, Scotland
Alma materEdinburgh College of Art
StyleVideo art
AwardsMargaret Tait Award (2013)
Websitehttps://www.rachelmaclean.com/

Rachel Maclean (born 1987) is a Scottish visual artist and filmmaker.

She lives and works in Glasgow.[1]

Her films have shown widely in galleries, museums, film festivals, and on television. She has screened work at numerous festivals in the UK and internationally, including Rotterdam International Film Festival, Ars Electronica, Fantastic Fest, Mecal Pro, Fantasia Film Festival, and BFI London Film Festival. She has received significant acclaim with solo shows at Tate Britain and The National Gallery, London, and represented Scotland at the 2017 Venice Biennale with her film Spite Your Face. Her work A Whole New World (2014) won the Margaret Tait Award in 2013. She has twice been shortlisted for the Jarman Award, and achieved widespread critical praise for Feed Me at the British Art Show in 2016.

Maclean is also a NUAcT Research Fellow at Newcastle University.[2]

Early life and education

Maclean was born in Edinburgh.[3]

She has a BA in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College of Art.[4]

Career

Maclean was selected to represent Scotland in Venice at the 57th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, 2017.[5][6] This solo presentation of new work centred on a major new film commission.[7] The work was based on the story of Pinocchio.[8] The presentation is commissioned and curated by Alchemy Film & Arts[9] in partnership with Talbot Rice Gallery and the University of Edinburgh.[6]

In 2021, Maclean created Upside Down Mimi, her first permanent outdoor commission at Jupiter Artland sculpture park in Scotland.[8] The installation combined both architecture and animation and a replica toured Scottish city centres in spaces that would have been shops. The work explored ideas of consumer desire. The building looks like a derelict shop, and inside is the character Mimi, represented by dolls and a video at the back of the space. Maclean was influenced by the story of Hansel and Gretel in making the work. Jupiter Artland commissioned the work, and also facilitated Maclean working with a school group, which influenced the development of the work. The character of Mimi is an exploration of chasing and living up to unachievable female beauty standards.

Work

Tom Sutcliffe on BBC Radio 4's Front Row described Maclean's work as "patrolling an uncanny territory between innocence and dread, between guilelessly cute and childlike and something far more unsettling".[8] She has said she wants to make people feel uncomfortable by her work, to challenge people's conceptions. She sees her work as political, and is interested in exploring national identity, political identity and gender identity through her work.[10]

Maclean uses a lot of green screen in both her video and 2D prints to compile images.[10] She usually plays all the roles in her video works.

Her work Make Me Up took audio from Kenneth Clark's Civilisation. The work contrasted this "old-school, sort of paternal style of television and...juxtaposing it against something more like a reality TV show"[10] The work also explores more broadly the patriarchal idea of civilisation, and who that idea serves.

Maclean produces elaborate films and digital prints using extravagant costume, over-the-top make-up, green screen visual effects and electronic soundtracks. Using film and photography, she creates outlandish characters and fantasy worlds which she uses to delve into politics, society and identity.[11] Wearing colourful costumes and make-up, Maclean often takes on every role in her films herself. She uses computer technology to generate her locations, and borrows audio from television and cinema to construct narratives with a comedic touch.[12]

Maclean's artwork is both seductive and disturbing, it sucks the viewer into oversaturated candy coloured worlds and repels them with unsettling themes and narratives. She explores issues of identity, class, nationalism and gender, whilst referencing narrative structures from pop culture and fairy-tales.[13]

Some of Maclean's work explores ideas of Scottish identity.[14] Her work The Lion and the Unicorn (2012), for example, was made in response to the election of the SNP in 2011, and the referendum that was on the horizon. She wanted to explore "a romantic vision of Scottishness, and how we reconcile that with a real lived experience of Scottishness, and what relationship that has in Scottish Nationalism and also with Unionism".[14] The characters in the film are based on the heraldic symbols for the United Kingdom: the lion as England and the unicorn as Scotland. Maclean played both characters. She used audio taken from speeches by David Cameron, Alex Salmond and the Queen, and mimed along with them.[14][10] The exhibition also featured digital prints.

A lot of Maclean's work uses parody as a technique.[14]

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Year Title Venue Location Notes Ref.
2012 Generator Projects Dundee
2013 Trade Gallery Nottingham
Collective Gallery Edinburgh
Edinburgh Printmakers Edinburgh
2014 Zabludowicz Collection London
2016 HOME Manchester
2017 Tate Britain London
2017 Scotland in Venice, Venice Biennale Venice [5][6]
2018 Dublin City Art Gallery Dublin
KWM Arts Centre Beijing
National Gallery of Australia Canberra
Zabludowicz Collection London
2019 The National Gallery London
New York
Tel Aviv Museum of Art Israel
2020 Arsenal Contemporary, Kunsthalle zu Kiel Germany
2021 Jupiter Artland Edinburgh
2023 Kunstpalais Erlangen Germany
2024 Kunsthalle Giessen Germany

Group exhibitions

Year Title Venue Location Notes Ref.
State Museum of Urban Sculpture St Petersburg [15]
Kunstarkaden Munich [15]
Talbot Rice Gallery Edinburgh [15]
Royal Scottish Academy Edinburgh [15]
British Art Show 8 Feed Me [16][17]

Awards

Year Award Work Result Ref.
2013 Margaret Tait Award For her contribution to Glasgow Film Festival Won [18]
Film London Jarman Award Nominated [18]
Film London Jarman Award Nominated [18]
Prix Ars Electronica DUCK (2024) Honorary Mention
International Federation of Film Critics Award (FIPRESCI) Make Me Up (2018) Won

References

  1. ↑ "GENERATION: Rachel Maclean". BBC Arts. 18 July 2014. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  2. ↑ "Our Fellows: NUAcT (NU Academic Track Fellowships)". Newcastle University.
  3. ↑ Ferguson, Brian (4 October 2018). "Interview: Artist Rachel Maclean on her sinister new film exploring how much freedom 21st century women really have". Scotsman. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
  4. ↑ "Five minutes on Rachel MacLean". TATE. 5 December 2016.
  5. 1 2 Miller, Phil (11 May 2016). "Meet Rachel Maclean: The candy-coloured nightmare world of artist to represent Scotland at Venice 2017". The Herald.
  6. 1 2 3 Greenberger, Alex (10 May 2016). "Rachel Maclean will represent Scotland at the 2017 Venice Biennale". Art News.
  7. ↑ "Rachel Maclean / Spite Your Face". Talbot Rice Gallery. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
  8. 1 2 3 "BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Rachel Maclean, arts education cuts, Richard Osman, British Book Awards Author of the Year". BBC. Retrieved 3 April 2026.
  9. ↑ "RACHEL MACLEAN SELECTED TO REPRESENT SCOTLAND AT VENICE BIENNALE 2017". 9 May 2016.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Disobedience, Rachel Maclean, Julián Fuks, Diversity Backstage". BBC. Retrieved 3 April 2026.
  11. ↑ Ruiz, Cristina (6 October 2018). "Rachel Maclean: satire for the age of Snapchat". Financial Times.
  12. ↑ Kelly, Brian P. (15 September 2018). "'I Was Raised on the Internet' Review: Binary Reactions to the Digital World". WSJ. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
  13. ↑ "Rachel Maclean". Kunsthalle Kiel (in English and German). 14 February – 6 September 2020. Archived from the original on 10 August 2023. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  14. 1 2 3 4 "BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Rae Morris performs live, author Ashley Hickson-Lovence, video artist Rachel Maclean". BBC. Retrieved 3 April 2026.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Theatre, Glasgow Film (10 December 2019). "Previous Winners - Margaret Tait Award". Glasgow Film Theatre. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
  16. ↑ "British Art Show 8". British Art Show 8.
  17. ↑ Judah, Hettie (9 October 2015). "The British Art show: Testing the limits of exhibition boundaries". The Independent.
  18. 1 2 3 "Rachel Maclean wins Margaret Tait Award - a-n The Artists Information Company". 17 May 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
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