Review: Helen Hughes, “John Meade at McClelland Art Gallery”, ArtForum
Read Helen Hughes’ insightful review of John Meades’s recent exhibition It’s Personal! at McClelland Gallery in ArtForum, March 2024.
“Meade has honed his craftsmanship across an impressive range of materials and methods (including resin, fiberglass, and enamel, as well as casting and TIG welding) so as to produce taut surfaces that rebuff, or perhaps even deny, interiority. Whether deployed as a veil or as armor, Meade’s exteriors disarm the relationship between a subject and its knowability.”
John Meade in conversation with curators Russell Storer and Zara Stanhope at McClelland
On the occasion of John Meade’s solo exhibition It’s Personal! at McClelland, the artist will be in discussion with curators Russell Storer (Head Curator of International Art, National Gallery of Australia) and Zara Stanhope (Ringatohu/Director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu). A part of the McClelland Critical Perspective Series, the discussion will offer sensitive insights to further understand the drives and conceptual framework behind Meade’s practice from two of the leading museum curators in Australia and New Zealand.
John Meade in conversation with Russell Storer and Zara Stanhope Through their eyes: McClelland Critical Perspective Series Saturday 20 January 2024, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm. McClelland Gallery, Melbourne
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.
John Meade: It’s Personal! is curated to reflect 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 will feature 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 will coincide with Meade’s major public sculpture Love Flower (2019) being installed at McClelland as part of the Southern Way McClelland Commissions.
John Meade: It’s Personal! McClelland Gallery, Melbourne 2 December 2023 – 25 March 2024
We are excited to announce that John Meade will feature in a major solo exhibition curated by Simon Lawrie at McClelland in 2023.
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This exhibition will present new and existing works by Meade surveying three decades of practice and is curated to reflect various personal threads in his work relating to alterity, including queer culture, politics, and artistic experimentation. The exhibition will coincide with the permanent relocation of Meade’s Southern Way McClelland Commission Love Flower (2019).
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Image: John Meade, Puschelhockers, 2018, real and fake fur, stainless steel, plastic, acrylic paint, (detail)
Established in 2002, the Gertrude Editions are an annual series of specially commissioned limited-edition works of art by former studio artists and exhibitors.
‘The Gertrude Editions’ includes works by Sutton artists Kate Beynon (2003), Nicholas Mangan (2007), David Rosetzky (2008) and John Mead (2010).
The Gertrude Editions
15 October 2022 – 13 March 2023
Geelong Gallery | 55 Little Malop St, Geelong
Image: John Meade, ‘Screw Babs’, 2010, hydrostone, polyethylene and steel, 55cm, ed/50. Photo credit: Andrew Curtis.
‘Who’s Afraid of Public Space?’ is a major new project taking place at ACCA and extending across Melbourne through a series of satellite exhibitions and programs in the public realm from 4 December 2021 – 20 March 2022, featuring artists Laresa Kosloff and John Meade.
John Meade’s new sculpture ‘Love Flower’ installed on Peninsula Link
Created for the Southern Way McClelland Commission, this charming work is based on an an Ikebana arrangement with an Agapanthus flower – an uncompromisingly tough perennial (technically classed as a weed in Frankston) that gets it name from the Greek ‘Agape’ meaning ‘Love’ and ‘Anthos’ meaning ‘Flower’. While Agapanthus usually stand around 2 to 3 feet in height, Meade’s ‘Love Flower’ plays with scale and expectation, stretching elegantly over the Cranbourne Road exit at 10 metres tall.
Raafat Ishak and John Meade in Conners Conners inaugural exhibition
Raafat Ishak and John Meade are included in portico, the inaugural exhibition at Conners Conners, a new non-profit exhibition space at Fitzroy Town Hall.
portico Conners Conners Fitzroy Town Hall, behind the central terrace on Napier St 21 November – 21 December, 2019
