Dexter McLean (b. 1993, Kingston, Jamaica) is a UK-based artist whose practice is concerned with representation, focusing on the challenges disabled people face in contemporary society. McLean often creates portraits that challenge myths about the abilities disabled people have.

Ideas of community are important in McLean’s photographic practice: one of his most notable series, Aspire Gym, was inspired by his own ambition to become a Paralympian. McLean photographed athletes from a wheelchair rugby team who trained at the gym, addressing how power, strength and disability are represented in mainstream media.

For Autograph’s commissioning project Care I Contagion I Community – Self & Other, McLean is creating a new series of portraits that looks at one of the minority communities affected by the impact of Covid-19. Focusing on the community that surrounds the artist in his day-to-day life, McLean will photograph his closest family and friends, including those caring for him, highlighting how valuable these relationships are. He will investigate ideas of protection, and the simple functions such as mask-wearing that form an essential part of the experience of the global pandemic. This new work questions who is protecting who?, at a moment when Black, Caribbean and Asian communities have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19.

We'll update this page as the commission progresses, join our mailing list for updates. In the meantime, read an introduction to the Care | Contagion | Community project by Autograph's Senior Curator Renée Mussai.

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