Jordan Laura MacLachlan, born in 1959 in Toronto, is a storyteller describing to us what is and what could be. A self-taught sculptor, her ceramics, created over a twenty-five year span, are masterworks of detail depicting life in all its layered complexity.
They suggest parallel worlds where possibilities become reality in another dimension.
She is unflinching in her narration of what she defines as the endless unexpected ways of subway living. A man wrestles with a giant rat, a woman gives birth on the white tiled floor and primates couple in complete oblivion to the swirl of quotidian chaos around them.
Her remarkable work has been featured in Raw Vision where she was one of 50 women artists selected for the issue “Women and Outsider Art”. Introduced to the public just five years ago, her compelling sculptures comprising a lifetime’s work have been exhibited at The Outsider Art Fair, American Visionary Art Museum and are sought after by collectors. It was also included in Super-Rough in New York in June 2021, a group exhibition of self-taught sculptors guest curated by Takashi Murakami.
MacLachlan believes that where we live determines how we live. Her often startling work is devoted to exploring the various ways to be. Over the last twenty years, She has created four environments totalling hundreds of sculptures: Uncontrollable Worlds; Condo Living; Zoo Living and Unexpected Subway Living. Each one amplifies the concept and context that every action taken, every decision made ripples through the universe leading to unforeseen and often bizarre consequences.