Interstellar Space

Interstellar Space is a solo exhibition by Daniel McClellan centred around a series of planetary paintings. McClellan approaches painting as a game, with rules and contexts to work within, drawing parallels to music and architecture—all sharing interests in movement within constraints, notation, and structuring space and time. The exhibition continues his exploration of painting as a system of movements within constraints. Each planetary painting is the same size and medium to give McClellan more painterly freedom. The title references John Coltrane's album of the same name, a free jazz masterwork that helped McClellan return to the studio after a period of conceptual stalemate. Alongside the paintings, McClellan has installed a site-specific sculptural piece, Moons, which consists of the four gallery columns scaffolded in mirrors. The piece operates thematically—mirrors block and reflect light as moons do in space—and conceptually continues McClellan's interest in space as a spectrum extending from the cartesian plane to architecture to outer space.