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Morgan MacLean: Sculptor creates illusions in wood

Morgan MacLean, photographed during a break in preparations for the show at Reform Gallery in L.A. Behind him: a wood sculpture of a drum traffic barrier known as a channelizer, carved over six years from a 1,000-pound walnut log. "You cannot cast these shapes out of wood," he said. "The beauty of them is knowing that they have been made out of a solid piece of material."

Morgan MacLean, photographed during a break in preparations for the show at Reform Gallery in L.A. Behind him: a wood sculpture of a drum traffic barrier known as a channelizer, carved over six years from a 1,000-pound walnut log. “You cannot cast these shapes out of wood,” he said. “The beauty of them is knowing that they have been made out of a solid piece of material.”  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

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Highland Park artist Morgan MacLean sculpts wood into the shapes of urban refuse – paper bags, cigarette butts, water bottles. The net effect: a commentary on disposable living, and beauty found in the most unlikely places.

Participation piece

Morgan MacLean sits by “Smashing,” one of his works in a show running through Jan. 31 at the Landing, a new exhibition space at Reform Gallery in Los Angeles. In 2000, as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, MacLean placed this aluminum cylinder with a sledge hammer in a public park in Providence, R.I. “I left it with no instructions,” he said. “It took about three hours before someone picked up the hammer and hit it, erasing the boundary between observing a piece of public art and participating in it.”  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

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