Freaky fairytales: the upside-down mind of Rachel Maclean – in pictures

She’s starred in DayGlo works as a post-truth populist and an army of germs. Now the inventive Scot is celebrating her first public artwork – an abandoned shop at Jupiter Artland where normal rules don’t apply

Main image: Little shop of horrors ... Mimi, by Rachel Maclean. Photograph: Amelia & Christian Masters

  • upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop, 2021, animation still

    Jupiter Artland’s Annual Commission has gained critical acclaim over the past decade, inviting artists to make their first major outdoor artwork. Previous commissions include swimming-pool sensation Gateway by Joana Vasconcelos; Phyllida Barlow’s Quarry; and Charles Jencks’s land art phenomenon Cells of Life. Rachel Maclean’s 2021 commission, Mimi, is Jupiter’s most ambitious commission to date and has been produced in dialogue with teenagers across Scotland. Mimi opens at Jupiter Artland, Wilkieston, near Edinburgh, on 8 May
    upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop, 2021, animation still

  • upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop, 2021

    Responding to an invitation from Jupiter director Nicky Wilson and head of art Claire Feeley, Maclean has taken her inspiration from commercial spaces as sites of desire, combining this with the role forests play within fairytales, being at once places of magic, danger and transformation where the normal rules of daily life no longer apply
    upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop, 2021

  • upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop, 2021

    Maclean’s new commission responds to the pressures facing young people in the shadow of the pandemic, the rise of online culture and the decline of real-life spaces – high streets, town centres and countryside – as sites for young people to discover and express their identities. To coincide with the commission, Jupiter Artland is launching a nationwide campaign this summer, The World Upside Down, aimed at supporting teenagers with everything from mental health to body image issues
    Rachel Maclean’s 2021 commission Mimi

  • The Lion and the Unicorn, 2012, digital video still

    Alongside the new commission, Jupiter Artland will invite audiences to delve further into Rachel Maclean’s imagination through the display of four seminal works from the past decade. The Lion and the Unicorn, created in the year the Scottish independence referendum was announced, is an inspired commentary on Scotland and the crisis of the union. Rachel Maclean: Solo Exhibition will run 8 May-18 July
    The Lion and The Unicorn, 2012, digital video still.

  • The Lion and the Unicorn, 2012

    Emblazoned with Union and Saltire flags, Maclean dresses as a lion to embody English voices and a unicorn for Scottish ones, borrowing the vocal talents of former SNP leader Alex Salmond and the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman to excellent comic effect
    The Lion and The Unicorn, 2012, digital video still

  • Spite Your Face, 2017, digital video still

    In 2017, Maclean represented Scotland at the 57th Venice Biennale with Spite Your Face, a post-truth fairytale inspired by the lies and sleaze dominating global politics. The central character of the film is a Pinocchio-esque figure who rises to power by telling lies
    Spite Your Face, 2017, digital video still

  • Spite Your Face, 2017

    Maclean’s works deliver biting critiques of political scandals as they unfold in real time. Spite Your Face addresses the toxic post-truth campaigns behind the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential election
    Spite Your Face, 2017, digital video still

  • Germs, 2013, digital video still

    Using colourful makeup and extravagant self-designed costumes, Maclean plays all the characters in the films herself. Her 2013 short film Germs follows a glamorous female in her battle against an adorable army of pink-and-purple germs, each played by the artist
    Germs, 2013, digital video still

  • Germs, 2013

    Timely to revisit in the wake of the pandemic, Germs follows a series of advertising tropes for cleaning and health products, as the lead character becomes increasingly paranoid about the omnipresence of microscopic germs
    Germs, 2013, digital video still

  • Eyes 2 Me, 2015, digital video still

    Made in the style of a children’s television programme, Eyes 2 Me follows a young protagonist named Sophie as she moves through an enchanted garden inhabited by a race of cuddly Cyclops. As the video shifts between different formats (kids’ TV, a fashion shoot, a probing interview), Sophie is surveyed, coerced and reprimanded by an omnipresent male voiceover, whose treatment of her moves from benign paternal care to cold disapproval
    Eyes 2 Me, 2015, digital video still

  • Eyes 2 Me, 2015

    Shot entirely on green screen, Maclean is the only figure in the work, miming to a recorded audio and warping her features to create uncanny, cartoonish characters that exist within an oversaturated digital world
    Eyes 2 Me, 2015, digital video still
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