Rachel Maclean
RACHEL MACLEAN
VISUAL ARTS
My work slips inside and outside of history and into imagined futures, presenting a hyper-glowing, artificially saturated surface that is both nauseatingly positive and cheerfully grotesque. In recent videos such as ‘Tae Think Again’ (2008) and ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ (2009) I create synthetic spaces in which Mary Queen of Scots dines with the ‘it’ girls of Sex and the City, ‘Neds’ dance around a sausage Stonehenge and a ghoulish Susan Boyle plays the blow-up guitar. My videos stylistically unify the aesthetic of The Edinburgh Bargain Store, Youtube, Hieronymus Bosch and High Renaissance painting with MTV style green screen and channel changing cuts. I am the only actor and model in my work, constructing alternative personas that are then cloned, mutated, objectified, worshiped and murdered at will. Inspired by the Britney Spears head shaving, I am interested in the moment at which unified, constructed identity throws itself up and tips into it’s opposite. The instant of self-consumption, when the signature white smile of the teen pop sensation begins to hungrily gnaw at it’s own image.
TAE THINK AGAIN
‘Tae Think Again’ re-thinks Scotland’s heritage. Slipping inside and outside of history and into imagined futures, it’s hyper-glowing, artificially saturated screen is both nauseatingly positive and cheerfully grotesque. Portraying a world of plastic babies, oversized sausages and kilt-wearing robots, the video centres on a recurrent female figure who jumps schizophrenically between ‘it’ girl, contemporary politician, ancient monarch and musical nymph, to finally appear as a lethargic decapitated head.Digital references to my work.
www.theskinny.co.uk/art/interviews/rachel-maclean-venice-interview
UKYA PROJECTS:
National Biennale: Derby 2010
