Ian Mclean

Canadian painter Ian McLean studied at the University of Guelph with an additional period of study in London, England. He has exhibited widely in Canada and his work is found in collections internationally. McLean has been the recipient of multiple Ontario Arts Council grants and was recently a contestant on the reality series “Landscape Artist of the Year: Canada” on CBC TV.

McLean's paintings are rooted in the architecture of mid twentieth century houses – structures that, for him, evoke a specific cultural memory yet feel suspended in time. These homes, both familiar and elusive, serve as vessels for nostalgia, longing, and the unknown. Each painting is a meditation on control and its limits. Colour is central to his process. He uses unexpected, sometimes otherworldly colour as a form of allure and disruption. The palette becomes a language of its own – expressing what memory distorts, forgets, or transforms. Ultimately, his practice is about the blur between worlds - between the constructed and the organic, the known and the mysterious, the remembered and the imagined.

University of Guelph, Canada
Western University, London

Selected Exhibitions:
2025: Earlscourt Gallery, Hamilton
2024: Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery, Sarnia
2024: The Gallery House, Bayfield
2021: "VAM43", Visual Arts Mississauga
2020: "Presently", Art Gallery of Peterborough
2019: "The Same Things At The Same Time", Gallery in the Grove
2017: "Elusive Utopia", Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery, Sarnia, Ontario
2016: Sopa Fine Art, Kelowna, BC
CFA Gallery, Toronto
2015: CFA Gallery, Toronto
Gallery 1313, Toronto
2014: CFA Gallery, Toronto
2014: Handworks Gallery, Saint John, New Brunswick
2013: "Weird", Harbourfront Centre, Toronto
2013:"Conditions", Loop Gallery, Toronto
2013:"Easily Distracted", St.Thomas Elgin Art Centre
2013: Judith & Norman Alix Gallery, Sarnia
2012: Glenhyrst Art Gallery, Brantford
2012: Forest City Gallery, London
2012:Gallery Moos, Toronto
2011: Loop Gallery, Toronto