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Untitled, (2026)

Hebridean Wool, Metal Chains

As part of my graduation installation Geàrraidh

The practice of Clio Maclellan spans across artistic disciplines and investigates the interplay between materiality and spirituality associated to the resources that sustain the life and the commercial exchange of the Outer Hebrides, the island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The tension between sculptures, paintings and the raw materials interrupt the automatic mode of perception, by slowly revealing their uncanny nature as the viewer lingers on them over a sustained period. The installation Geàrraidh hints through its title to the Gaelic word for the grazing land around a township and embodies the quiet resistance of a mostly rural population to the velocity-driven values of the contemporary world.

The key to the interpretation of Maclellan’s work lays in the identity of the crofter. In opposition with the extensive farming land-owners, the crofters in Scotland are associated with small-scaled cultivation, shared responsibility, vulnerability in the face of nature and a reciprocal relationship with the land. They personify an ethic of care, resilience, and continuity, contrasting with extractive and productivity-driven models of inhabiting the world. The distinction between the attitude of the islanders and of the rest of the world is made visible by the painting Duncan Dei, in which the famous lamb of Zurbarán bears a red number on its soft body. Through the symbolic act of tagging, the artist highlights the precise moment in which the animals that are loved and cared for become commodities: the transformation occurs in the instant when they are sold to the mainland and they become numbers on a page. Life on the Islands builds up a toughness and resilience to this process, testified by notes in the display box next to Duncan Dei. While a certain ambiguity is allowed when it comes to the personal feelings of the crofters towards the commerce with the mainland, their dependence on the land they inhabit is made evident: the rocky soil of the island represents the centre of their life. The presence of this relationship is contained in the sculpture 57.6233189, -7.5250195, whose position as a satellite in the installation Geàrraidh illustrates the paradox of the centre, which, according to Derrida, is both within the structure and outside of it. Representing the most spiritual element of the installation, the praying rock invites the beholder to bow down and rest their forehead on the marble. The aforementioned tension between individual positions on subsistence and trade and the absolute nature of the relationship with the island is reinforced by the contrast between the two gut sculptures: Lamlac, cast from with a mixture of lamb milk powder and plaster is inherently fragile and exists only for the duration of the exhibition, the other sculpture, carved in marble, asserts timelessness.

Ultimately, Geàrraidh proposes a way of looking that resists immediacy and demands sustained attention. Through an interplay of practices and materials both permanent and temporary, the artist resists nostalgia and offers a profound reflection on life and labour in the Outer Hebrides. The work of Clio Maclellan is, as the elders from North Uist would say, not only about the breadth of life, but also about the depth of life.

Text written by Teo Modoi

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