Catalogue Essay by Phe Luxford, 2024
Stuart McLachlan's first solo exhibition with Flinders Lane Gallery, Homebound, reflects the quiet, profound struggle for sanctuary in a world increasingly shaped by displacement and fragmentation. World-renowned for his intricate paper sculptures, McLachlan uses his medium to tell global stories of war, colonisation, and climate change, illustrating the human need for a place of safety and connection. Delicate yet resolute, his work balances the fragility of paper with the weight of these complex themes. These new sculptures, depicting homes from a diverse range of cultures, serve as both artefacts and metaphors. They evoke the universal yearning for stability and shelter, particularly poignant in an age where that stability is increasingly threatened. Central to many pieces is the recurring motif of a man carrying a small house under his arm, symbolising a paradoxical relationship between the fragility of home and the human capacity to endure. The figure’s journey is one of survival, a reflection of the millions of displaced people across the globe who must reconcile the loss of home with the necessity of movement. In our conversations, Stuart and I often touch on these global tensions, of people displaced by war or environmental collapse. Our dialogue invariably returns to a shared disillusionment with the lack of collective empathy in our world. The themes of his work echo these exchanges – a sense of walking the same painful paths of history, repeating cycles of displacement, greed, and neglect. "Humanity’s endless capacity to create illusory divisions," as McLachlan notes, is a recurring source of frustration for him. Through his work, he seeks to break down these barriers in small but meaningful ways. Stuart's reflections resonate deeply: why do we keep repeating the same historical patterns of exclusion, marginalisation, and destruction? His works capture this cyclical nature of human experience. “We go around and around the same issues of control and ownership,” he says, and this repetition is manifest in his art; each house, each figure of a traveller, represents a new iteration of an old, unresolved story of struggle. A standout piece, Dnipro, is deeply personal for McLachlan. Drawing on his Baltic heritage and his brother’s role as a frontline medic in Ukraine, the work explores the intimate link between home and survival. The matriarchal figure in Dnipro, adorned with the sunflower emblem of Ukraine, holds a bridge aloft; a symbol of both protection and hope. This piece speaks to the universal longing for sanctuary amidst conflict and chaos. In Hatchet Job, McLachlan’s commentary shifts to Australia’s housing crisis. Here, a house is depicted as the head of an axe, cleaving through a tree – a haunting metaphor for how broken systems of ownership and development continue to divide communities. Another work, featuring a fireplace filled with native bushland, reflects the clearing of Australia’s natural environment and the erasure of First Nations territories, all for the purpose of providing comfort to colonial settlers. Homebound presents viewers with a quiet yet incisive critique of the human tendency to erect and dismantle barriers, whether physical or ideological. The exhibition is not merely about displacement; it is about the stories we tell ourselves to justify those displacements, and the broader implications of a world that continues to perpetuate cycles of suffering. McLachlan’s work invites us to reflect on these global narratives, subtly challenging us to re-imagine how we conceptualise ideas of home, belonging, and community.
ARTIST PROFILE: Stuart McLachlan began his career as an illustrator in Adelaide then worked in Melbourne, Amsterdam, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver. Now based in Sydney, his attention has moved to fine art where he has become internationally regarded as one of the world’s premier paper sculptors. Guided by his exquisite illustrations, the artist uses hand cut paper to mold into intricate figures and structures. So brilliantly rendered, the sculptures have a porcelain-like finish.
The hand-made pieces have been commissioned as art, used extensively on the fashion runway, adorned hotel foyers, theatre sets and imaged on book covers. His work has been published globally—appearing in magazines such as The Economist, The New Yorker, Vogue and Newsweek.
McLachlan's paper work has been catalogued in the art books, “PaperArt” (Hong Kong), “PaperCraft 2” (Berlin), “Paperworks” (China) and “PaperCuts“ (USA) which go behind the scenes featuring 30 of the world’s best paper artists. His work has been included in many exhibitions and has recently been accepted into the Hazelhurst Art Awards as well as being auctioned at The Rockefeller Centre in New York by Christies Auction house.
In 2018, he was included in the Luerzer’s archive Vienna, Austria international publication “200 Best Illustrators Worldwide” 2018/2019.
