Mark McDean

A Melbourne based artist, writer and lecturer in fine art & design. Graduating with a MA fine art by research in 2000, he has spent the past ten years working across a number of institutions including Monash University, RMIT University [fashion] and Victoria University. Mark has an extensive exhibition history including Ian Potter Museum at Melbourne Uni, NGV Fed Square, Sutton Gallery, and QUT gallery in Brisbane, along with a number of commissioned public art projects. He is also known widely for his entertaining and somewhat humorous catalogue essays and magazine articles.

With an interest in, and practice relating to, the psychological and sociological aspects of dress, Mark McDean forensically deconstructs what was once an ‘accepted’ garment to challenge a dismantling of masculinity. The hesitance of performing the first cut with a remnant of fabric could be compared to the skilful surgeon making the initial intrusion into the body, or the corpse, in an investigative anatomical move. The exo-skeletal outcomes of McDean’s works brings to mind the layered notion of ‘cutting to the bone’, to reveal markings/remembrance of past histories, key life periods and evidence of trauma[s].