News/Blog - Contemporary & 19th century analogue photography processes

Ian Phillips McLaren (b. 1960) is a British contemporary artist, his varied practice combines contemporary and 19th century photographic processes, video, sculpture, performance and animation.

Ian’s latest project utilises projections, audio, performance and video to explore self-portraiture in the context of Jung’s four main archetypes Anima/Animus, Shadow, Persona and Self. By moving his images away from the gallery wall onto the surface of handmade effigies he’s creating multi-sensory video sculptures.

Venice Experimental Video And Performing Art Festival

I’m really happy that my work has been chosen and is showing at the Venice Experimental Video And Performing Art Festival at the Palazzo Bembo – Venice, Italy | 23rd April 2022. The work on show is a video of my ‘Self-Portrait/ There’s someone In My Head…’ installation. VENICE EXPERIMENTAL VIDEO AND PERFORMING ART FESTIVAL 2022 is focused...

Salt Printing Masterclass at London Metropolitan University

This week I taught a Salt printing masterclass at The School of Art, Architecture & Design which forms part of London Metropolitan University. Salt Printing is a contact printing process, which means that the final print will be the same size as your negative. It was great to see the students immersed and having a great time making their own salt prints, all of which...

Cyanotype Prints & Cyanotype Toning

This week I taught a masterclass on cyanotype printing at The School of Art, Architecture & Design which forms part of London Metropolitan University. Cyanotype is the most popular of the alternative processes, possibly because it is seen to be easy and cheap – in the past it was mainly associated with amateur photography. In the 1800’s serious photographers...

Self-portraits with ancient Roman artefacts

I’ve been working on a couple of different projects recently, including this one. I’m looking at the Romans and the Greek (Hellenistic) influences on portraiture. The Romans were big on hybrid forms of portraiture rooted in Hellenistic art, this period was really significant in the development of portraiture and portrait art. Picasso and De Chirico looked to Roman and...

New Book & Art Cards, Now Available

I’m happy to announce that our new book and art cards for our exhibition ‘Squaring The Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st century’, are now available from the Royal Photographic Society website/shop on this link here. This book accompanies the exhibition of the same title which will be shown in the RPS Gallery in summer 2022, postponed from...

Wire Pear

On June 17th I did a practicle workshop exploring themes pertinent to artist Matthew Darbyshireʼs practice and inspired by his new public artwork Hercules Meets Galatea. With museums and collections closed for many months and artists having limited opportunities to show and share artworks, this workshop was designed to consider alternative ways to collect, curate, make and...

There’s Someone in my Head…

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, not because of lock-down but mainly because I’ve been really busy with my MA Fine Art which will end in September 2021. As far as my work is concerned it has changed quite dramatically over the last few months, it wasn’t an intentional decision, it just seems to be the direction in which my MA Fine Art has...

self-i project

I’ve been working on my ‘Self-i’ project for the last few of months. last September I embarked on an MA Fine art degree `( I know – oldest student in town ) to try to push my art and to give me the next two years of just experimenting with my ideas. If I’m being honest, I would have hated the self-i images only a year ago as they...

Squaring the Circles of Confusion – Exhibition

Squaring the Circles of Confusion; Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st century exhibition. This new exhibition, curated by Zelda Cheatle, celebrates the work of artists Takashi Arai, Susan Derges, David George, Joy Gregory, Tom Hunter, Ian Phillips McLaren, Celine Bodin and Spencer Rowell who each bring a pictorialist approach, through aesthetics or process to their contemporary...

Gum Bichromate Print

This is a gum bichromate print from my recent ‘Drive By’ series called ‘The Road To Debden’ I decided to leave some brush marks on the bottom of this image to reinforce that this is a photograph made with watercolour pigment. Drive By series – Road to Debden – Tri-colour Gum Bichromate print. #gt3pg_gallery1...

Contemporary fine art photography artist

This is my first post on this domain name IanPhillipsMcLaren.com after running with ipmclaren.com for the last couple of years for my fine art photography work. Things were starting to get a bit confusing using variations of my name, so thought I’d stick with my full name Ian Phillips McLaren. After 30 years of Fashion and portrait photography for various large...

Down My Lane – Gum Bichromate

Some new gum prints shot down my lane, originally shot as digital, then printed CMY negatives, and printed as a gum bichromate print. The print is made up of 12 layers of watercolour pigment on watercolour paper and took just over one week to make.