IN THE STUDIO WITH MICHAEL JONES MCKEAN

Michael Jones McKean studio visit, March 2021. Photo credit: Nick Davis

For artist Michael Jones McKean, the studio space serves as more than an artist's work area. It’s an intense fabrication zone, an office, a live sketchbook — even a nap space. The studio is an archival space of the self, where one can attempt to make sense of ideas coming to fruition in the mind, with various works spilling into one another and influencing unknown outcomes. With the long-form project Twelve Earths in a constant state of transformation, McKean’s studio represents a near temporal dimension revealing a practice that is simultaneously in the middle, before, and after. 

The following images record the suspended yet fluid energy of activity within McKean’s studio, where he’s able to capture an eternal exchange between human-made and natural worlds. Explore Michael Jones McKean’s studio as he reflects on what the space means to him and Twelve Earths as a whole.

Excerpts from a tour

“One of my studio assistants once said to me, ‘Everything is here. If anyone wanted to know all of your ideas, they’re in these sets of books and binders.’”

“Maps have been a big part of my life in here, with many maps of the world hung throughout the studio — and, of course, Google Maps.”

“I’ve been working on some collage work, but typically I’m working very iteratively, so I’m working on multiple projects at once.”

“A question that often comes up — it’s tough to answer — is about how did I choose the ring? And I’ve talked about the “in medias res” part, how I’m showing you a window into the project in the middle. We studied hundreds of rings in detail and tens of thousands in algorithmic detail.”

“There have been a few materials in the studio that have been talismanic in my practice. From petrified oak to a whale bone fossil, even basalt that can be found at the bottom of our oceans [top right] have been used to guide my thinking.”

“My studio is many things. It has been many things — in certain moments. It serves as an archive that’s been home for the last ten years and has been itinerant in my various thoughts and projects.”

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