An urban street, a dilapidated building, an industrial area now vacated, this is where artist Ian McFarland finds his inspiration…..and his medium. Recycling and repurposing, Ian works with the found, appropriating street posters and making them his own. Peeling back glued poster layers or working with ripped fragments, Ian makes discoveries and he puts these through an extensive process on canvas, and delivers new imagery and juxtapositions.
Based in Adelaide, Ian has always had an urge to create. Born in Woomera, South Australia, raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, and returning to Australia in his late 20s, up until his early 30s Ian was employed in industry, aligned to his tool making trade. During this period, lamps were made from circuit boards, furniture produced from demolished buildings, and jewellery created on the factory floor of Mitsubishi Car Makers. In 2003 Ian took himself to art school, graduating with a Masters in Visual Art and Design from the South Australian School of Art.
Ian’s work presents a reconfigured and re-authored landscape; where beauty overlooked is seen, and the found is reordered. The accident, the textured aged surface and the presence of text, make the work full of something we see without knowing we are seeing it, an urban landscape full of the global language of the street (Radock, 2010, Exhibition: Traffic).
Recent work can be viewed on: ianmcfarland.online