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ELEANOR MCLEAN
Eleanor has a multi-disciplinary practice that operates within the realms of sculpture and installation, using found objects, writing, and craft. It is often poetic, drawing on personal nostalgia and collective memories through British culture within objects, interiors, and traditions.
Her practice is consistently informed by how space can be philosophized as utopia, dystopia, and heterotopia, which refers to a concept by Michel Foucault as worlds within worlds. She uses this to understand order and behavior in space, and how a particular group of heterotopias can bring comfort, happiness, and escapism. It is interesting to also consider how happiness is constructed politically and socially; while building on Sara Ahmed’s writing, happiness may be understood as something to obtain, promised to us, and an experience changeable due to class and culture. The significance of belief systems and order is also central to her practice in exploring our cultural understanding of happiness, hope, and wishes, while also examining existing societal structures, superstitions, and folklore.
With regards to the work’s domestic influences, Eleanor likes to also consider the act of daydreaming and remembering, how memory is constructed, and physically how objects of an interior space change and move through time, and then become romanticized. The materiality is often influenced by the domestic tropes present in British pubs, examining the sentimental Victorian influences in the interior and architecture. She is interested in how these spaces can provide a sense of comfort and refuge while simultaneously being destructive. Eleanor often collects objects that evoke nostalgia, combining this with cathartic craft such as tufting, ceramic, and writing. Her practice seeks to embody and understand nostalgia, interested in how it offers a sense of community and belonging to culture and generation, considering particularly the role of storytelling through families and social media.
works for sale on auction:
