New and Recent works by John McLean

3 Jun-3 Sep 2016

Overview

It would be a mistake to think that the nightingale’s song could be understood by dissection of a tiny thorax, but McLean’s paintings are worth a close-focussed inspection. You begin to take in the exactness of certain overlaps, the variety of edge in the way one colour meets another, the way one colour might glow through another, in the end the care-less-ness, the take-it-or-leave-it, of the whole unself-regarding utterance. And all within the shallow pictorial space of the picture plane. It may be McLean’s Scottishness which stops this work from prettiness on the one hand , or being weighed down with portent on the other. These works will endure simply by their lack of pretension, their rational optimism, energy and muscle.