Jason McLean

Crash of the Junkman (2012)

Ground floor, in the west hallway adjacent to the London Life Lounge.

I Was Just Joking About the Money (2012)

In the Hospital the Dr. Looked at my Nails (2012)

The Sensitive Man..!!?!!! (2012)

Four map-like drawings consisting of text, shapes and images situated against a vacant backdrop. The pencil and ink works are embedded with a multitude of references to society and popular culture.

Exhibition Information

Jason McLean: if you could read my mind includes 57 works completed since the artist returned to London, Ontario after living in Vancouver and Toronto and traveling extensively in North America and Europe. These drawings, paintings and sculptures form an idiosyncratic visual record of his experiences and perceptions, which, as the artist puts it, act as "a rhizomatic diary that pictorially represents my relationship with local environments." McLean's chronic mapping captures, with dazzling vertigo, his restless movements through an ever-changing terrain of cultural and social relations. Everything from fragments of popular culture to quotidian experiences appears in these immersive works. The exhibition catalogue includes essays by David Liss, Sarah Milroy and Christine Walde. This exhibition commemorates the 100th anniversary of H. B. Beal Secondary School, where McLean studied art prior to attending the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Many distinguished Canadian artists have graduated from the Bealart program, including Greg Curnoe, Robert Fones, Wyn Geleynse, Jamelie Hassan, Ed Pien and film director Paul Haggis, who won Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Academy Awards in 2004 for Crash.

Since leaving Beal, McLean has exhibited often, including projects at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles, and ABEL Neue Kunst, Berlin. He is represented by Jessica Bradley Gallery, Toronto and Allegra LaViola Gallery, New York. His work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Exhibition information courtesy of McIntosh Gallery

Biography

Jason McLean was born in London, ON in 1971. After attending H.B. Beal Secondary School with Marc Bell and Peter Thompson, McLean graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver in 1997. He has exhibited nationally and internationally including shows at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Loyal Gallery in Malmo Sweden, and at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica.

In 2004 McLean was chosen by Macleans Magazine as one of the top 10 artists to watch in Canada. His artwork is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, MOCCA, Vancouver Art Gallery, BMO Bank Collection, TD Bank Group and the RBC Bank Collection.

Jason McLean’s drawings, paintings and sculptures are idiosyncratic visual records of his experiences, observations and perceptions. His frenetic artworks include rich annotations and carefully-researched fragments of personal and social histories. McLean’s drawings act as rhizomatic diaries that pictorially represent his relationship with local environments. His works are often described as mental maps, where samplings of his daily observations are mashed-up into antiheroic, yet poignant combinations. Working in this way, McLean uses humour to touch upon challenging subject matter, such as sadness, loss, displacement, mental illness and economic hardship.

Biography courtesy of Michael Gibson Gallery