Distant Friends

Peter McLean

4 february - 25 March

In 2020, McLean began a series of portraits in response to the distance that opened between us in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we became suddenly reliant on forms of digital connection for social interaction, McLean sourced photos from the social media feeds of friends as the basis for his portraits. The portraits remain highly pixelated however, representing both the opportunity of these digital interactions, as well as their limitations.

Developing an experimental system for using Lego tiles as a printing matrix, each colour separation is constructed from Lego tiles, inked and printed before dismantling the matrix and beginning the process again. An image emerges from this process of layering between 12 and 16 colour separations to create each portrait. The images are distorted, and yet they remain entirely recognisable. In this way they highlight some of the ways that our minds can recognise faces (and other patterns) from very little information and how much of what we ‘see’ is actually the result of complex mental processing.

Peter McLean is an established Quinbean/Queanbeyan based artist and one of the ACT region’s most significant printmakers. Through his printmaking practice McLean investigates environmental themes, colour theory, and experimental print systems through various relief printmedia techniques and processes.

The works in this exhibition were created with the support of artsACT’s Homefront grant program.

Events + Dates:

Wednesday 8 February: Join us from 5pm - 7pm as we celebrate Peter McLean’s exhibition Distant Friends, to be formally opened by Tara Cheyne MLA, Minister for the Arts.

Saturday 25 March: Join the artist from 11am - 12pm at Megalo for a print demonstration, in which the artist will expand on his innovative tile and registration system for his relief print from Lego prints. This technique was developed by McLean as a way to explore portraiture and abstraction through the use of colour separation theory. This demonstration will be held in the Megalo Press Studio to coincide with the final weekend of his fabulous exhibition Distant Friends.

Distant Friends is on display 4 February - 25 March

Megalo is open 9.30am - 5pm | Tuesday - Saturday