In her home studio among the rolling hills of Scone in regional New South Wales, you could easily cast Janno Mclaughlin as Alice in a self-created Wonderland. The artist lives with her family in a renovated World War II army depot, filled to the brim with vibrant artworks, floor to ceiling paintings and soft, hand-sewn sculptures. Standing atop a teetering pile of sculptures, the fabric of Mclaughlin’s patchwork dress melds intovelvet and satin flowers, sequinned birds and tresses of fabric that spill out below her. Her studio and the artworks that fill it seem to be an extension of the artist herself; bubbly, vibrant and inviting.
Mclaughlin studied a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT in Melbourne, working as a nurse and in adventure sports, before moving overseas for 18 years to live between New York and Argentina. Her time in Argentina was spent in the slums of Buenos Aires running community art projects. Today, there is a humbleness that permeates Mclaughlin’s work and reflects on this formative time. “It strengthened my understanding of the importance of love, care and community,” she says.
Making Nonsense, Mclaughlin’s solo exhibition at Melbourne’s fourtyfivedownstairs gallery earlier this year debuted a body of work which continued her trajectory of work completed during her Master of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts. The work expands into larger-than-life sculptures, collaged paintings and works on paper. Making Nonsense captured the absurdity of a world turned upside down from the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the disruption and pandemonium of life ever since.
Exhibition goers took a tumble down the rabbit hole with a cushiony landing into Mclaughlin’s wonderland, a world full of ideas about compassion, togetherness, love and community.
Mclaughlin’s artistic pursuits are far reaching, boundary-pushing and in the artist’s own words, “bend the genre of painting”. Storytelling is immensely important to her practice and she uses iconography and motifs to signify certain ideas. The cocoon is omnipresent across her latest body of work, conceived in recent years as a symbol of safety, metamorphosis, refuge and motherhood. “All my work is about reaching out and looking after each other and our vulnerable planet,” says Mclaughlin. “Gorillas and elephants too, are favourite metaphorical friends.” The artworks have come from a caring place, translated not only by the levels of intricacy and time each takes to make, but by how one inherently feels when viewing them, warm and full of hope.
Mclaughlin often works collaboratively to bring awareness to social justice issues, with projects such as Corona Girl exhibited as part of Making Nonsense. Corona Girl saw a global community of women contribute patches to a gown that adorned a central mannequin, uniting the experiences of women during the pandemic as one. Mclaughlin often platforms marginalised voices, and as the mother of a profoundly autistic child, has faced tough challenges personally. But, as she says, “I have learnt to just get up each day, try to laugh and dive bravely head on into whatever comes”.
Creating positive and joyful engagement with art, Mclaughlin shows us a lighter and more joyful version of life. Mclaughlin has an exhibition slated for May 2022 in New York.
Featured image: artist Janno Mclaughlin. Photo: Jackson Barry. Courtesy: the artist.