This Collection of 27 paintings and 6 drawings was exhibited in 2005

For this exhibition MacLean has returned to her enduring fascination with the myths of Ancient Greece. Especially those concerned with ......Hera and her powerful husband Zeus..

For MacLean, myths are the recollections of parables which resonate across time in every age..

Gaia is the mother of all women, of the gods and of the earth. Throughout these paintings her daughters are figured in their mythical contexts and in their relationship to Zeus, the powerful seducer, the deceiver, the shape changer........

"Judgement of Paris" 170 x 48cm
"Hera" 170 x 48cm
"Aphrodite" 170 x 48cm
"Athena" 170 x 48cm
oil on canvas

A horizon, and a limit of melancholy is provided in the three ’Messages’ where Zeus, in the eagle form which he often took, is reduced to the distant messenger in the fading light of the sun.......the very power of his interactions with the daughters of Gaia diminished.......................
  "Message 1" oil on canvas 115 x 115cm

The notion of beauty, the notion of power and the notion of linear time are all called into question here...... with playful laughter and the ambiguity of the mask....

The appeal of MacLean`s work is both visceral and intellectual. ....Her paintings make an unashamed appeal to the senses, invoking a heady reaction which can border on synesthesia.
And here is an enigma, for on first acquaintance MacLeans paintings are, above all else, representational..... She works her magic by combining an intellectual playfulness with a total command of her medium . ..... If we approach MacLean`s work as passive viewers, we may miss the rich humour and pathos which inhabit the spaces she creates.

This Collection of 28 paintings and 6 drawings was exhibited in 2008


"Summer Gold" oil on canvas 80 x 120cm

“.....If you had no memory you could not even remember that you ever did enjoy pleasure, and no recollection whatever of present pleasure could remain with you ...”

".....Memory plays a significant role for artists, generating creative ideas add involuntary responses not only to visual imagery, but also to sounds, scents and tastes. MacLeans painting (in this collection) The Leopard is based on the memory of seeing it, sensing its presence, and hearing its breath, Her flowers especially the heavy roses (’Ashes of Roses’) invoke memories of scent, like Proust`s taste of madeleines associated with his childhood......."