Maclean’s road sign imagery – in particular his A R T stop signs (2000-2001) –moves back and forth from the obviously iconic to more recombinant metaphors, and navigate or recombine themes in the combat zone of contemporary art. As Maclean says, “I am as inspired by mundane everyday urban fabric and other material detritus as I am by historical works of masters and dabblers in art history.”

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The vernacular of signology is a vernacular part of the culture of the street, of public space, of the everyday – akin to the spoken word in writing – that makes art accessible, not hidden from all of us. From the signology of place, Maclean has explored the human cultural paradigm, the displacement of the human psyche, with a sense of the social role art can play. Beyond the purist aesthetic, his artistic practise brings to aesthetics a social humanism. An interweaving of the natural and the synthetic leads to a more meaningful and personal expression. The act of art goes beyond the urban theatre to address deeper, more universal states of being. Why states of being? Maclean never leaves the moment of the action, of the inter-action between self and society.

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J.K.Grande

2017