TRIBUTE: John Meade-It’s Personal!

Combining the rigors of geometry with soft organic forms, John Meade works in an intuitive way to materialize his ideas, creating tightly orchestrated pieces that explore the metaphysical, the surreal and the erotic. Meade’s superior use of color, material, and surface, culminate in eccentric and immaculate sculptures that claim their space with a formidable presence.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo:McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery Archive

Through sculpture, video, and installation, John Meade draws relations between the metaphysical and surreal in the experience of contemporary life and culture. A refined and adventurous materiality defines his work, through sensuous forms and unexpected juxtapositions inflected by the erotic and uncanny. The exhibition “It’s Personal!” reflects various personal threads in Meade’s work relating to alterity, including queer culture, politics, and artistic experimentation. “It’s Personal!” is a reflection on some of the psychological and societal drivers that have informed Meade’s life and art. The title refers to the way personal subjectivity shapes the sculptures Meade creates, and references Carol Hanisch’s seminal essay from 1970, “The Personal is Political”, which outlines the pragmatism of women coming together to share their personal experience as a basis for collective action. The exhibition features three large new works exploring abstract form alongside key sculptures from three decades of Meade’s practice, installed across three expansive gallery spaces and outdoors at McClelland. The exhibition coincides with Meade’s major public sculpture “Love Flower” (2019) being installed at McClelland as part of the Southern Way McClelland Commissions. “Something for Everyone” is a body of work that Meade has scaled to suit the home, all of which revisit and extend upon already existing sculptures. Aiming for both formal and conceptual accessibility, each piece is underpinned by the democratic philosophy of an “Art for All”, famously adopted by Gilbert and George. The likeness of these sculptures to Meade’s previous artworks points to the artist’s interest in notions of the original, the elaboration of form and the recurrence of artistic conventions over time, both within his own oeuvre and within the wider tradition of modern art. This body of work resumes the avant-garde’s project of collapsing the categorical boundaries between “art” and “life” and – if only by default – reiterates Meade’s own ability to effortlessly handle shifts in scale from the intimate to the epic. In the series “Autumn 2014”, Meade presents a series of five elegant new sculptures, with strong verticals and seductive curves, suggesting abstract, figurative forms. They carry the quality of a feminine silhouette in their sculptural shape: long and thin, akin to a fashion model. The five works are solid, foundry cast, aluminium, with a two-pack painted surface finished in a variety of colours. These forms are then complimented by accessorising gestures using a range of media, such as tinted chrome, glow-in-the-dark prayer beads and horsehair. These recurring dramatic verticals build up on Meade’s recent work where he sourced forms from eighteenth century monumental astronomical observatories in India. Of particular interest is the sundial, with its curving base which then extends upwards to the sky. This curvature at the base is strangely reminiscent of the oversized Giacometti foot and the stride of his walking sculptures is a further reference to Meade’s runway sculptures.

Photo: John Meade, The Puschelhockers (detail), 2018, fur, steel ,acrylic paint, metallic screen, print ink, hairclips, dimensions variable Photo Andrew Browne, © John Meade, Courtesy the artist and McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery

Info: Curator: Suzette Wearne, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery, 390 McClelland Drive, Langwarrin, VIC, Australia, Duration: 2/12/2023-17/3/2024, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 10:00-17:00, https://mcclelland.org.au/