Rachel Maclean


Rachel Maclean is a multi-media artist.
Over the last 10 years Rachel Maclean has shown widely in the UK and internationally, in galleries, museums, film festivals and on television. Maclean produces elaborate films and digital prints using extravagant costume, over-the-top make-up, green screen vfx and electronic soundtracks.
Maclean’s artwork is both seductive and disturbing, it sucks the viewer into oversaturated candy coloured worlds and repels them with unsettling themes and narratives. Until recently she has been the only actor in her films and prints, exploring issues of identity, class, nationalism and gender, whilst referencing narrative structures from pop culture and fairy-tales.
Using film and photography, she creates outlandish characters and fantasy worlds which she uses to delve into politics, society and identity.
Wearing colourful costumes and make-up, Maclean takes on every role in her films herself. She uses computer technology to generate her locations, and borrows audio from television and cinema to construct narratives with a comedic touch.
Maclean was born in Edinburgh. She lives and works in Glasgow.

Career

Maclean has had solo exhibitions at the Zabludowicz Collection, London, Edinburgh Printmakers, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Trade Gallery, Nottingham and Generator Projects, Dundee. In 2013, Maclean received the Margaret Tait Award for her contribution to Glasgow Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award. Her work has also been shown at the State Museum of Urban Sculpture, St Petersburg, Russia, Kunstarkaden, Munich, Germany, Kunsthalle, Kiel, Germany, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. She has a BA in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College of Art.
Maclean exhibited in British Art Show 8 with Feed Me.
Maclean was selected to represent Scotland in Venice at the 57th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, 2017. This solo presentation of new work centred on a major new film commission. The presentation is commissioned and curated by Alchemy Film & Arts in partnership with Talbot Rice Gallery and the University of Edinburgh.