Past Exhibits
Colleen McLean
"Transcendence"
February 8th - March 31st, 2009
As a young girl Colleen traveled all over the country by car following her father's assignments in the Coast Guard. She attended fourteen different schools before graduating at 16 from Holy Angels Academy in Seattle, Washington. Dominican nun, Mother Austin of Holy Angels, recommended that Colleen attend Cornish Art Institute (Cornish College of the Arts today,) thus continuing her lifelong pursuit of the arts.
Colleen married Donald Angus "Mac" McLean in 1950, and gave birth to nine children from 1951 to 1962. She wanted to get back into painting and drawing, so she returned to Cornish Art School in 1969 to "get a kick into the arts." Colleen drew upon her unity of family and friends for inspiration, and mastered portraiture and figurative work. This culminated in a fifty year retrospective in 1996 at the Newport Visual Arts Center in Newport, Oregon. Her move from Seattle, where she and Mac raised their children, to the Oregon Coast in 1980 changed her inspirational source to landscapes and the pure enjoyment of painting en plain air (outside).
The art process for Colleen is not limited to painting and drawing. Starting with the paper doll cut-outs at 4 years old, Colleen has designed, drawn and created fashion for herself, family, friends and theatre productions. This love of textiles and fashion led Colleen into the role of Lead Costume Designer for Newport Visual Arts Center.
Colleen may not hear the words being said, but nothing escapes her visual scrutiny. Colleen's landscapes, painted with rich jewel tones have the ability to put you in that time and place. 
Her portraits of family members and friends have captured their soulful depth, and attest to her amazing visual skill and mastery of paint.
At 79 years of age, dealing with the effects of macular degeneration and aging, Colleen is facing difficult obstacles in her creation of art, but as she says she is not ready to give up yet.
