Page 14 - Art First: Will Maclean: Gleaned and Gathered

without at least sensing the environ mental freight they carry with them.
²e sheer materiality of his prac tice, and the stories embedded there,
is beautifully encapsu lated by the story of ‘ambergris’ as one of the

minerals referenced within his art. ²is is the heav ily sought after and
traded sub stance that derives from the agglutin ated and indigestible
squid beaks that are depos ited in the stomachs of whales as they feed
in the great oceans. After being periodically excreted into the sea, the

amber gris is gathered by coastal peoples, such as those who live around
New Zealand, and sold on at an enormous price to the perfume manufac -
turers who, in their synthetic heavens, have never found as good a medium
for hold ing and mixing scents. If ambergris is an extreme version of this

jour ney of trans for ma tion from the ocean biosphere to the coastal gleaner
to the apogee of luxurious commod ifi cation, it is nevertheless only one
of many that can be seen in Maclean’s work, as similar histories lie within
whale bone, carved wood, wax and hammered metals. Many like these

come directly from the earth or the sea though some are more industrial,
such as the epoxy resin used to remodel car bodies that the artist uses
to create casts of precious objects for inser tion into his work. To my mind
the operative terms are some thing like ‘sedi men tation’ or ‘crystallisation’,

evoking the way that fine sands, ice, pebbles and vegetation are held
in river flows, moving around in suspended motion and contin gency.
Maybe this is the reason why the sculp tural relief format works so well
for Maclean, as it allows objects to float in a space where gravity has only

a light hold and thus offers the sensation of flotsam cascad ing through
water. (How appropriate that his magnificent Dundee Contem porary Art

A Candle for Lubeck 1 & 2, 2014
two part sculptural construction, mixed media & found objects, 123 x 123 x 8 cm and 83 x 45 x 23 cm