PASSAGES: 4 Rivers 4 Climates, 2021, mixed media on linen, 102” x 102"
Inspired by the recurring theme of the four seasons in art, McClelland uses this
structure as a formula for depicting the passage of time. The paintings expand upon this
tradition by exploring how geography influences the economic and social fabric of our
culture. The paintings distinguish four climate categories - Arctic, Tropical, Arid, and
Subtropical - through four major bodies of water. Inspired by the impossibility of
capturing a river, the paintings examine the many ways to measure a meandering form.
Each painting addresses the rivers’ multiple sources and the singular delta or mouth
where they empty into a larger body of water. They present the physicality of the
landscapes as well as the disputed facts surrounding them.
The work approaches traditional landscape from a bird’s eye view, mapping out and
abstracting passages of The Northwest/Northeast Passages (in Reds), The Amazon (in
Yellows), The Nile (in Blues), and The Yangtze (in Greens). Each landscape
encompasses multiple points of interest, referencing the contemporary uses of satellite
imagery. McClelland’s fluid approach to painting mirrors how water controls and carves
a landscape. Pigmented layers of transparency, opacity, reflection, and absorption are
embedded with (often conflicting) information pertaining to the history of trade route
expeditions as well as the structures that block and harness the water’s energy in dams.
These “facts” contextualize the paintings within their respective landscapes, while the
color variation within the monochrome palettes offer a conception of climate, water, and
land. By presenting such ever-changing geographic entities coupled with facts which
are supposed to be a fixed truth, the work emphasizes the inevitability of change and
the conflation of passage of time with passages in space.