John MacLean makes playfully serious, reflexive photographs.

He is not a conceptual artist but is clearly fascinated by the concepts which underpin photography. For that reason, he doesn’t shy away from his work being labeled, ‘photography about Photography’.

However, he tries—whilst freely acknowledging the difficulty of the task—to make photographs that act as platforms for conversations supporting his primary interest: how we perceive the world and ourselves within it.

His modus operandi is to play with and against the photographic apparatus—and he takes pleasure in trying to personalise an inherently impersonal medium.

John embraces photography’s newfound universality, inclusivity and current status as a lingua franca. Thus, he attempts to get ideas ‘into’ his photographs without relying on text.