Feature
Kun Song’s gleaming, immersive installations question systems of belief, be they religious, cultural, or technological.
Portraiture is central to Mclaine’s work, but her approach resists the conventions of either documentary realism or fixed representation. She is acutely aware of the harm that can occur when an image claims to fully describe its subject. Her engagement with queer photography lineages, including Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar and Jesse Glazzard, offers an alternative approach grounded in care, intimacy and mutual recognition. “I see the people in the photos as varying instances of revelation,” Mclaine notes. Her subjects are never arranged to serve a predetermined narrative. Instead, they appear as they are in that moment, participating in a shared space of play, performance and trust, often rediscovering themselves through the fresh encounter with their image.