Siobhan McClure

Region: Pacific Coast

City / State: Los Angeles, CA

Issues that propel my work relate to visual and social perception and the interconnectedness of all actions. The series Driven Into Paradise: The Tale of Pearl presents fragments from an epic narrative of the flight of small bands of children escaping the destruction of their city. The action begins in the “Below”, an immense underground warehouse set in a landscape that resembles Los Angeles. The pictorial space is divided into upper and lower realms painted in heightened one-point perspective achieved by following the rules of linear perspective instead of its intent. The resulting structural distortion manifests two underlining themes: one is that we live in a world of multiple points-of-view yet operate as if there is only one, and the other is that the rules or systems of society have become more important than those they were intended to serve. The children’s chance of surviving this flawed system and reaching the “Beyond”, a paradise filled with rocks and snakes, depends on their ability to communicate and cooperate.