daniel mcclellan (b. 1993) is a sydney based artist. mcclellan's practice, anchored in painting, is focused on systems of constraints (e.g., architecture, maths, games, language, etc). these systems share key features: they are based on interdependent contexts and restraints; they are generative; able to be self reflexive; and can carry/generate meaning, concepts and content. painting itself is understood as one such system.
select solo shows:
- site responsive exhibition largely focused on relationships between context and painting for various contexts (physical, linguistic, capitalist, etc) and various conceptions of painting (paint on a surface, sculptural works, installation, etc).
- used the planets in our solar system as the starting points for a series of large scale abstract paintings. the exhibition had these 8 paintings (mercury-neptune), three more paintings (pluto, interstellar, space), an installation using mirrors and the gallery's columns (moons), and a short text (laws of planetary motion).
- cellular automata were used for the compositions for a series of paintings. the formula for each painting's cellular automata was slightly different to imply/mimic different aspects of the natural and built environment. the exhibiton comprised of 6 paintings, a bonsai, and field recordings from parks in tokyo
- the compositons for the paintings were based off architectural elements of the gallery building. the exhibiton comprised of 12 paintings, a wall painting across the three levels of the gallery, and a small artist book of drawings of the architectural information used for the compositions.
- i made a generator (coded in Processing) based off my own paintings and hosted on a website (the culmination of my now defunct generativepainting.online website). the exhibition comprised a mixture of the original paintings that were coded into the generator, and paintings of generated paintings. the generator was displayed on a monitor, refreshing every 5 seconds with a new painting, and a generative audio piece was playing.