All At Once Painting

Canadian painter Ian McLean studied at the University of Guelph with an additional period of study in London, England. He has exhibited widely in Canada and his work is found in collections internationally. A member of the international jury of the Prisma Art Prize in Rome, McLean has been the recipient of multiple Ontario Arts Council grants and was recently a contestant on the reality series “Landscape Artist of the Year: Canada” on CBC TV. McLean’s recent work explores relationships between social and natural worlds. The environments are sometimes familiar but are usually imagined places. At all times, these images suggest efforts to contain, control, manipulate, or avoid circumstances of nature as evidenced in highly groomed and domesticated environments. The implied narratives often suggest a disruption in utopian pursuits. “I paint with oil. It is a medium with an enormous history, but I like to coax and cajole and use it to render images that are at once irreverent and laden with subtext. I like moments in painted surfaces that can be alluring, impulsive, seductive, and irrational. I want the viscosity of the medium to reveal passages of control and chaos all the while evoking a sense of beauty and ambiguity in a sea of paint.”