With Rachel Maclean’s first solo exhibition in Germany, the Scottish artist comments on the political and social situation in the United Kingdom, reflecting on the prospect of Britain leaving the European Union.
In her cinematic and photographic installations, multi-media artist Rachel Maclean translates contemporary issues from politics and society into satirically exaggerated, colourful illusory worlds. Green screen, computer animations, digital post-processing and collage-like use of audio material from pop culture are the decisive means of her playful engagement with current challenges. Often, they are played off against each other in caricatured representations of different positions. In the run up to the Brexit deadline, scheduled for October 31, 2019, three works by Rachel Maclean are telling allegorically the clash of different realities and the resulting disunion.
The Lion and The Unicorn (2012) is a short film inspired by the heraldic symbols found on the Royal Coat of Arms of The United Kingdom, the lion (representing England) and the unicorn (representing Scotland). The piece uses representations of both alliance and opposition to explore national identity within the context of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence and with a focus on the present, can be assigned to the Brexit decisions of the different parts of the United Kingdom.
The video installation Please, Sir... (2014) is a darkly comic adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Prince and The Pauper, exploring themes of greed, class and dependence within a cultural rhetoric of austerity and aspiration. She mimes to found audio plundered from a myriad of sources, including Britain’s Got Talent, Jeremy Kyle and The Apprentice. As in many other of her works, Rachel Maclean is the only actor in front of the green screen.
With her virtual reality installation I‘m Terribly Sorry (2018), Maclean places the players in a post-Brexit dystopia, which offers the opportunity to take photos of passersby’s and landmarks with a mobile phone. She reflects social discomfort and misunderstandings in a culture of insatiable self-expression, documentation and voyeurism.
About the artist /
Rachel Maclean (* 1987, Edinburgh, UK) lives and works in Glasgow. She studied drawing and painting at the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, US. Her most recent solo exhibition was in 2018/2019 at the National Gallery and Zabludowicz Collection, London. In 2016 she had a solo exhibition at Tate Britain. In addition, her work has appeared in numerous solo exhibitions and at film festivals around the world, including New Zealand, China, Greece, Australia, France, the US and Luxembourg. She received the Margaret Tait Award in 2014 and represented Scotland at the 57th Venice Biennale 2017.
