Rachel Maclean: Feed Me / Ben Wheele: Deep | Dark | Dank

Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain is presenting two exhibitions by Rachel Maclean, Feed Me, and Ben Wheele, Deep | Dark | Dank.

Candy coated and colourfully confected, Rachel Maclean’s films skewer the habits and preoccupations of contemporary society. Feed Me is her most ambitious and audacious project to date—a checklist of human cravings and failings that doubles as a hypermodern status update on the Seven Deadly Sins, with its swipes at the commercialisation (and sexualisation) of childhood and an equivalent infantilisation of adult behaviour. Featuring a rogue’s gallery of memorable characters (all performed with extraordinary élan by Maclean herself), Feed Me is a starburst shock to the taste buds that leaves you wanting more. (Text: Steven Bode). Rachel Maclean – Feed Me is curated by Kevin Muhlen.

Alongside of the exhibition Feed Me, Rachel Maclean has invited Ben Wheele for a presentation of Deep | Dark | Dank. Using a range of digital animation techniques, Ben Wheele constructs a fantastical world of sinister creatures, dark humour and grotesque body horror. His work is often found lurking in the “dark side of YouTube,” a little-known zone of mysterious videos, which generate all sorts of conspiracy theories and terrified reaction videos online. Alongside his previous films, the installation features his latest project Top 5 Animation Containers. The work mimics the format of a YouTube “countdown” video to explore how viral memes evolve. In particular, Creepypasta stories (online horror stories spread through “copy and paste”) and Dank Memes (exceptionally odd / unique memes).

About the artists
Rachel Maclean (b. 1987, Edinburgh, lives in Glasgow) produces elaborate films and digital prints using extravagant costume, over-the-top make-up, green screen VFX and electronic soundtracks. Maclean’s artwork is both seductive and disturbing, it sucks the viewer into oversaturated candy-coloured worlds and repels them with unsettling themes and narratives. Until recently she has been the only actor in her films and prints, exploring issues of identity, class, nationalism and gender, whilst referencing narrative structures from pop culture and fairy tales.

Rachel Maclean graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2009 and her work came to public attention in New Contemporaries later that year. She has since received significant acclaim, with major solo shows at Kunsthalle zu Kiel (Germany); Arsenal Contemporary, New York; Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden (Germany); National Gallery, London; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Artpace, San Antonio, Texas; HOME Manchester and Tate Britain, London. Her work A Whole New World won the prestigious Margaret Tait Award in 2013. She has twice been shortlisted for the Jarman Award and achieved widespread critical praise for Feed Me in British Art Show 8 in 2016. She has also worked on a number of TV commissions with the BBC and Channel 4, which include her most recent film commission Make Me Up (2018), as well as Billy Connolly: Life of a Portrait (2017) and Rachel Maclean: The Shopping Centre, Artist in Residence with Firecrest Films and Channel 4 (2018). Rachel Maclean represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale 2017 with the work Spite Your Face, on view in Chiesa Santa Caterina.

Feed Me (2015), commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and British Art Show 8 with support from Arts Council England and Creative Scotland.

Ben Wheele (b. 1987, Ditchling) is a computer animator and visual artist based in London. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2011. His animated films have been screened at festivals internationally, including Annecy, Pictoplasma, London Intl. Animation Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival and Stuttgart ITFS. His work has been exhibited at The Sunday Painter Gallery (London), Gazell.io digital art space and broadcast on Adult Swim and Channel 4 (UK). He is the founder of “Studio Ponk” and currently lectures in 3D Animation & Games at Middlesex University.