Eleanor McLean (she/her) is a British artist based in London. She is a 2022 Sculpture graduate from the Royal College of Art and 2020 BA Fine Art graduate from UCA Farnham.
💌 eleanormcleanstudio@gmail.com
Instagram – @eleanormcleanstudio
Website – http://www.eleanormclean.com
Education
2020 – 2022. MA Sculpture, Royal College of Art, London – (distinction in dissertation)
2017 – 2020. BA Fine Art, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham – (first class honours)
2016 – 17. UCL Art and Design Foundation Diploma, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
Solo Exhibitions
2023 :
– paint_windowsintodreams.jpeg, London Arts Board, in collaboration with cur. Liza Burton, London.
– Promise, Robert Young Antiques, Contemporary Collaborations, cur. Hector Campbell, London.
2020 :
– Patio Project, cur. Georgia Stephenson, London.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 :
– Anemoia, Connaught Village Art Month, London
– The Wicker Arms, Staffordshire Street Studios, London
– Summer Crush, Seeing Loud Gallery, Hootananny, London
– People in Pubs, The Second Act Gallery, London
– Winter Sculpture Park, Gallery no.32, Thamesmead London
2024 :
– The Walls Between Us, Saatchi Gallery, London.
– Sandcastles by the Sea, Filet Space, London, [self curated]
– Take A Sea, Bow Arts X ha.lf, London
2023 :
– Filthy Fox Auction Club, Greatorex St Gallery, London
– Let Them Eat Fake, Bad Art, BWG Gallery, London
– Borrowing Tomorrow’s Happiness, Take Courage Amersham Arms, London [self curated]
– Gatherings, Working Class Collective Database residency show, SET, London
– Next Round in collaboration with CSM curation students, Swiss Cottage Library, London
2022 :
– Pure Class, RCA Working Class Collective (member), St. Johns Bethnal Green, London.
– RCA 2022 Degree show, Battersea South.
– Lapped Seams and Silver Linings, Standpoint Gallery, London
– Too Much Fruit, Take courage gallery, Amersham Arms, London
– We Wont Stop Showing, SET projects, London
2021 :
– What do we know (anyway?) Bloc Projects, Sheffield, cur. JJ Chan
– First Impressions, SafeHouse 2, Maverick projects, London
– Film screening, Motion Sickness project space, Cambridge.
2018 :
– When Our Lips Speak Together, cur. Josephine Rock, James Hockey Gallery, Farnham
Residencies
2023 : SET x WCCD, London
2022 : Prick and Stitch Alliance, Standpoint Gallery, London
Curatorial Projects
2025 : Anemoia, Connaught Village Art Month, London
2024 : Sandcastles by the Sea, Filet Space, London
2023 : Borrowing Tomorrow’s Happiness, Take Courage Amersham Arms, London
2018 – 2020 : Black Box project space team member, UCA Farnham.
[A student run exhibition space where we receive submissions and curate shows, hold fundraisers and arrange artist talks.]
Commissions
2020 – Present : Private rug commissions (request via email)
2018 : Poppy Appeal public art banner for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Women’s Society and permanent collection of Farnham Council offices.
Press / Publications
(2022 – present) Lost in Translation, self-published mailing list via Substack
(2025) Objects, Memory and Meaning, Aesthetica Magazine, Oct 2024
(2025) ‘The Wicker Arms: Interview with Eleanor McLean‘ New Current Magazine, Aug 2025
‘People in Pubs: A very British love affair..‘ Plaster Magazine, May 2025
(2023)‘Introducing Filthy Fox..’, FAD Magazine, December 2023
(2023) Top 5 Artists: Hector Campbell, The Action Collective, May 2023
(2022) RCA 2022 Degree show, June 2022
(2021) Screening Sculptures, Dreams of Flying, Ladies Drawing club. June 2021
Proxyerotics, ARC Magazine, June 2021
(2020) Gravy Zine, May 2020.
Penny Thoughts issue 33, Snitches Publishes, March 2020.
Permanent Collections
Farnham council offices : Poppy Appeal commission painting, 2018
The Hootananny, Brixton : Public Bar, mosaic, 2025
My practice operates within the realms of sculpture and installation, using found objects, writing and craft. It is often poetic through an act of remembering, drawing on personal nostalgia and collective memories through British culture within objects, interiors and traditions.
Through making and collecting objects, I investigate nostalgia as a generational cultural phenomenon, interested in how it offers a sense of community and belonging through the role of storytelling. My work navigates aspects of interiors and architecture within cultural spaces that offer a space of comfort within childhood and working class culture.
I am consistently informed by how space can be philosophised as utopia, dystopia and heterotopia, which refers to a concept by Michel Foucault as worlds within worlds. I use this to understand order and behaviour in space, and how a particular group of heterotopias can bring comfort, happiness and escapism. It is interesting to also consider how happiness is constructed politically and socially; whilst building on Sara Ahmed’s writing; happiness may be understood as something to obtain, promised to us, and an experience changeable due to class and culture. The significance of belief systems and order is also central to my practice in exploring our cultural understanding of happiness, hopes and wishes, whilst also the comfort it brings, through examining existing societal structures, superstitions and folklore.
With regards to the work’s domestic influences, I like to also consider the act of daydreaming and remembering, how memory is constructed, and physically how objects of an interior space change and move through time, and then become romanticised. The materiality is often influenced by the domestic tropes present in British pubs, examining the sentimental Victorian influences in the interior and architecture. I am interested in how these spaces can provide a sense of comfort and refuge whilst simultaneously be destructive. I often collect objects that evoke a nostalgia, holding cultural significance and familiarity, combining this with cathartic traditional craft processes such as tufting, mosaic and writing.
eleanormclean.com 