Says McClelland of her work, “I prioritise painting from a place of intuition and imagination. These paintings all begin in the same way, as I layer the canvas in stains to find impressions of bodies in the shapes left behind within the pigment. If I can’t find enough figures within the painting, I’ll draw from historical painting references, including those of bacchanalias, rituals, brawls and Victorian fairies. The bodies I paint are always nude – I’m drawn to the vulnerability in the rendering of flesh with the instinctual, complicated feelings it incites, everywhere from lust to horror.

“I paint indulgently, dancing the brush all over the canvas as the bodies reveal themselves. I feel like I’m chasing something, grappling between the viscosity of the paint, the figures and the feeling I want them to convey. In turn, the bodies I paint are often found to be in struggles with the landscape around them – suspended, caught up in eddies, blurring into the sky and mulching into the ground. I use these physical sensations to make sense of visceral ones. Some of these works I view as one body unravelling, while others are gentle exchanges between gatherings. Sometimes, they collapse into each other; other times, they’re falling headfirst, arms flailing.”