daniel mcclellan (b. 1993) is a sydney based abstract painter. mcclellan understands painting as a system of constraints to work within, in a similar sense to how games are a system of rules that we play within. mcclellan looks to games and other systems of constraints, such as architecture, music, and mathematics, for studio fodder. working serially, each series works through a different set of rules or constraints.
select solo shows:
- 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.