Art World
Gallery Hopping: Playful Paintings by Bruce McLean at Bernard Jacobson
The multimedia artist brightens up winter with dramatic color.
Chloe Leonida
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Multimedia artist Bruce McLean has brightened up winter with dramatic color in his new works on display at Bernard Jacobson Gallery‘s exhibition “A Hot Sunset and Shade Paintings” in London.
Using virtuosic technique, and—as is typical of the artist—humor, McLean has produced a body of work over the past year that demonstrates his versatility and skill as a painter.
“Shade” is a series comprising six works exploring light and shadow by use of vivid color. Alongside these, a group of mono-prints on wood are exhibited, showing the artist’s playful personality.
“McLean uses humor to confront the pretensions of the art world at a time when it is ever more necessary, as well as amply demonstrating a love and mastery of the medium of paint,” the gallery wrote in a press release.
Esteemed for his pioneering approach, McLean rose to prominence in the 1960s. He rejected the collective thinking of his peers, such as Barry Flanagan and Gilbert and George, at Central St. Martins, to develop his own radical interpretation of sculpture. By opting to use his body as the material, he blurred the lines between performance and sculpture, and initiated a new era of experimental action-based work.
“A Hot Sunset and Shade Paintings” is on view at Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London until January 28, 2017.
