Courtney McClelland

Courtney McClelland is a contemporary painter based on Gadigal land in Sydney, Australia. Her works are grounded in representations of the female figure emerging from an elusive, imagined landscape. The nude bodies are drawn from a place of desire, calling out to each other and crumbling in focus. Often ethereal, the distorted scenes take references from historical paintings of bacchanalia, rituals, brawls and Victorian fairies but differ in the agency she injects into these suspended figures.

Her paint application pays homage to the materiality of the medium. Beginning intuitively, she uses stains as the first layers, finding impressions of bodies in the marks they leave. The final surface reveals a combination of thick textural marks and soft glazes, positioning the bodies in undefined, evolving landscapes. Using paint to conjure a world, she exposes how we relate to each other in ways that are intimate, psychological, spiritual or chaotic.

Courtney was born in 1999 in Central Queensland and grew up in rural mining towns before moving to the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the National Art School in 2022, majoring in painting. Before her representation with Curatorial+Co. McClelland exhibited works at the Australian Galleries and has participated in several group shows, including the highly publicised exhibition ‘Hooray for Hollywood’, at the Hollywood Hotel in 2023.