Where does my value lie? - Tori Mclean

Royal College of Art
 
Mixed Media Automaton - Photolithography, laser-cut plywood, card, wood veneers, acrylic & aluminium, UV printed plywood, acrylic & aluminium, 3D print, cord, wood, metal, ring, & music box 
Tori McLean is an interdisciplinary artist working across print and sculpture to explore how female value, both personal and cultural, is shaped and constrained. Her practice is inspired by the questioning spirit of childhood, with her work using playfulness and nostalgia as disarming entry points into complex, often unspoken forces that shape female identity. McLean’s kinetic sculptures and participatory installations invite audiences to physically engage with her work, making them complicit in exposing societal power dynamics. In Where Does My Value Lie? (2025), part of a triptych of automatons representing Maiden, Mother, and Crone, a hand-cranked figure reflects cycles of unpaid domestic labour and the splintering of women’s time between caregiving, identity and aspiration.Through layered processes of printmaking, construction, and movement,McLean transforms passive observation into active disruption, prompting audiences to confront entrenched notions of female worth.