Review

Art & Antiques in Queensland - by David Letch

The art of Simon Mclean begins with the fantastical depths of the unconscious.
Playful and child-like, his imagery touches our personal mindscape and calls for a
response that is more to do with dreams and whimsy than intellectual analysis. Laced with humour his observations on the human condition reflect an ‘everyman’ perspective and throw wide the door giving us entry into a marvellously wry and original tongue in cheek vision.
Mclean’s world is both tragically funny and darkly beautiful. His vision is one of a universe where frailty and humour collide, where the exaggerated is normal and where the sky is perpetually aglow. Technically the work displays graphic skills that have become finely tuned revealing a deftness of line and form. So strong is his imagery, that these works, executed in charcoal, become so beautifully luminous that they embed themselves in the viewers mind in nothing less than technicolour.