John McLean: Momentum

We have produced an expanded Viewing Room for this exhibition, with additional online-only works available to purchase beyond those below. Please click here to view.

For over 50 years, John McLean determinedly pursued abstraction and colour. In an exhibition that charts work from the mid 1960s through to 2019, all drawn from the artist’s estate, John’s early interest in Abstract Expressionism, his time spent in the US and Emma Lake, Canada, and his London life where he lived from the 1960s is recorded. John’s work refuses neat division into chapters; throughout his life he experimented and ideas that are seen in their infancy re-emerge years later in their maturity. Shapes and motifs weave their way through the decades. John worked relentlessly but perhaps never more so than in his final years, when even holding a paintbrush was problematic, his colossal drive kept pushing onwards.

A truly independent artist, both serious and good-humoured, John McLean’s works are simultaneously considered and spontaneous. Light, space and movement are the core elements of John's abstract, often large-scale work. These focuses remain constant throughout his career, from the formal precision of his early work to the free-flowing and painterly expression he developed.

He moved across media, incorporating elements of collage and sculpture into his paintings and drawings. John's ability to translate the luminosity and rhythm of his painting in this form highlights the intentionality of his compositions. 

Born in Liverpool and raised in Arbroath, John's outlook and reach were international. He moved to London to study at the Courtauld and spent the 1970s at the Stockwell Depot of artists. McLean taught at various art schools in London, including the Chelsea School of Art. His first solo exhibition was in 1975 at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, and he has since had over forty solo exhibitions worldwide. Exhibitions in London, New York and across America were capped by his 2017 exhibition Like Singing and Dancing: John McLean’s Abstract Paintings at the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou. In 1981 he was invited as a guest artist to the Emma Lake workshop in Saskatchewan in Canada which marked a shift in his career. Critics and artists there included Clement Greenberg and Bill Perehudoff – both of whom had an impact on John’s work, as did Saskatchewan’s bright light and open spaces.

Later in John's career his practice was affected by his Parkinson's disease, and he moved to new means of production assisted by fellow artist and friend Shiba Hideatsu. He described his illness as 'a kind of a gift' in that it changed his approach to painting and markmaking. There is a calmness and precision to these later works; each brushstroke emphasised and placed with intention.