Wild Man comes to McClelland
Ron Mueck's hyperreal sculptures replicate the human figure in minute detail, with a haunting accuracy designed to challenges the viewer’s perception of reality. Despite their apparent truthfulness to life, Mueck’s figures are not life-size, rather their gargantuan or miniature dimensions accentuate an ambiguous relationship between expectations, visual perception and accepted truths. Theyare imbued with psychological traits, such as vulnerability or physical exhaustion, to elicit empathy between the viewer and the subject. Their poses are not classical or 'frozen in time’ but reflect a condition of stasis or inertia – an emotional state of introspection, melancholy, and sometime a paralysing anxiety.