Page 6 - Art First: Will Maclean: Gleaned and Gathered

before the formal end of the Second World War, when the RAF bombed
three prison ships lying in the Baltic port of Lübeck, near Ham burg,

includ ing the lux ury liner SS Cap Arcona, which contained 5,000 people
mainly held there from the con cen tra tion camps. Almost all lives were
lost. Maclean’s relief sculp ture, his homage to the event, includes a candle
found during the time when the artist visited Lübeck with friends, along -
side a fighter airplane model from Prague and a toy metal boat from

a Mon op oly set. Historic time, and the sense that this work comes from
a memor i alising emotion felt strongly by the artist, dominates our read -
ing of A Candle for Lübeck but in the chalky whiteness of the treat ment
and the bold, open layout of the composition, there is also a danc ing

empti ness that suggests that other responses, not so firmly tied to the
moments of 1945, are also possible and welcome.

A second major piece is Mariner’s Museum /Taxonomy of Tides(2014), quieter

in mood and indebted to another type of ‘historic time’ that enthusiasts
of Maclean’s work will readily recognise—the time of the museum. We see
a tableaux of five boxes, in double-page spread formats, each hold ing vari -
ous assemblages of circular devices, model whales, hull profiles, branch-

like curi os i ties and the like. Maclean draws here on for ma tive years spent
in the local museum in Inverness and later in places such as the Pettigrew
Museum in St Andrews University—maritime life, archaeo logical finds
and natural histo ries all drawn together in delicate tax ono mies and

ghostly tableaux, under lined by the sketchy pencil lette ring and drawing
that punc tuates the work’s surface, that have become something
of the artist’s trademark.

Mariner’s Museum/Taxonomy of Tides, 2014, mixed media construction, 123 x108 x9.5 cm