to artist Andrea McLean’s website

“Andrea’s work is heavily influenced by medieval maps which sometimes showed the material and the spiritual world as part of the same document. So Andrea records and maps personal journeys, both physical and psychic through extraordinarily detailed paintings.”

Peter Stiles, The Plough Arts Centre, Great Torrington, Devon  2018

detail from panel painting ‘the journey made’ 2017

This painting is about the creative act of making a reflective journey. Here, a journey of the imagination considers the restorative nature of the landscape. I am interested in showing routes taken as living things. The pathways are not so much worn or laid with tarmac or paved but instead are like plants; green, often with foliage springing, curling, stretching and turning from place to place.

‘Concordia’ oil on panel, 2018

Inspired by Ambroigio Lorenzetti’s frescos on Siena Town Hall, Corncordia shows a connected world where town and countryside, people and nature live in peaceful understanding.

Painted Reflective Books

I’ve begun naming my sketchbooks painted books, as they have now become finished pictures in Atlas form. The Hereford Mappa Mundi has been described as like a book but where you can see all the information from all the pages at once. My books are inspired by ideas of visual self actualisation and therapeutic ideas about the inner and imagined landscape. Two painted books of mine are on display the Hereford Cathedral’s ‘Mapping Inspirations’ exhibition. I’ve begun two more to replace them. One, in landscape format to be carried from place to place, and one which is to be a Commonplace Book. Always about reflection as an overarching theme, now the books are for creating pages for contemplation.