Tori McLean RCA, MSDC is a contemporary British artist, printmaker, and maker whose interdisciplinary practice bridges printmaking, painting, sculpture and automaton making to interrogate how value is perceived, assigned, and negotiated within society.
Her works often explore themes of gender, labour, identity, and care, using movement, repetition, or mechanical systems as metaphors for social expectation around female behaviour.
Through layered processes that combine traditional craftsmanship with contemporary technologies, McLean examines who defines worth, how value shifts across cultural and economic systems, and what, or who, becomes overlooked, marginalised, or undervalued in the process.
A postgraduate of the Royal College of Art and an elected member of the Society of Designer Craftsmen, her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, and are held in the public collections of the RCA, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Hampshire Cultural Trust and in private collections in Europe, the USA and Australia.
AWARDS
2026 VAA Art100 International, 100 Artists Selected for Publication.
2026 Homiens Selected for Promoted Artist Programme.
2025 Printmaking Today Prize, Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, Bankside, London.
2025 Travers Smith CSR Art Programme Recipient.
2025 Printmakers Council RCA MA Printmaking Award, Commendation.
2025 VAA Art500 International, CEO Rise Momentum Programme Recipient.
2016 Hillarys Design Award Finalist.
2015 Society of Designer Craftsmen
Distinction Award.
2015 Society of Designer Craftsmen New Licentiate Award.
2014 Designext International Grand Prize, New York.
2013 Purvaai Textile Design Award.
2013 Textile Award, B&Q/Elle Decoration British Talent Search.
COLLECTIONS
Royal College of Art, Special Collections, London.
Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester.
ARTWORK COMMISSIONS
RHS Chelsea Flower Show & City of London Corporation.
Hampshire Cultural Trust.
British Museum.
Royal Collection Shops.
David Watson.
B&Q.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026
Pattern & Progress, curated by Kirsty Rodda for Hampshire Cultural Trust, City Space Gallery, Winchester.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
Imprint, RHS Lawrence Hall, London.
VAA Artist of the Year Award (Longlisted - results pending)
Visual Art Open 2026 (Longlisted - results pending)
Festival of Print, East London Printmakers, Art Pavilion, London.
Print to Impress, Watts Gallery, Compton.
Inspired by Standen, Sussex Contemporary for National Trust Standen, West Sussex.
The Graduate Art Show, Art-movement Gallery, London.
Gatehouse Studios Artists’ Exhibition, Gatehouse Studios, Winchester.
A System at Scale, asdfasdfasdf Collective, Three Rooms, London.
Women by Women, Tower Gallery, London.
Green & Pleasant Land, Printmaker’s Council, The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford.
SSA 127th Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy of Art & Architecture, Edinburgh.
2025
London Art Collective, Saatchi Gallery, London. (Shortlisted).
Director's Cut, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, Online.
Small But Mighty, RE Society of Painter and Printmakers, Bankside Gallery, London.
RCA Summer Show 2025, RCA Battersea, London.
InBetweens, Southwark Park Galleries, London.
2024
InVisible, Hockney Gallery, London.
Designer Craft at Bankside, Bankside Gallery, London.
Small Wonders, Jack House Gallery, Portsmouth.
2023
Festival of Print, East London Printmakers, The Art Pavilion, London.
Royal Society of Marine Artists, Mall Galleries, London.
Portsmouth Printmakers, Jack House Gallery, Portsmouth.
Wonder, Oxmarket Contemporary.
Portsmouth Printmakers, Imagination Refinery, Portsmouth.
Ochre Print Summer Exhibition, Adam’s Gallery, Reigate.
2022
Festival of Print, East London Printmakers The Art Pavilion, London.
Cowprint 10th Exhibition, City Art Gallery, Southampton.
Transformations, Bankside Gallery.
Cutting a Fine Line, God’s House Tower, Southampton.
2021
3 Printmakers, Oxmarket Contemporary, Chichester.
Mayflower 400, God’s House Tower, Southampton.
2020
Vivid, Oxmarket Contemporary, Chichester.
Beyond Four Walls, Oxmarket Contemporary, Chichester.
Mayflower 400, Inky Hands Gallery, Massachusetts, USA.
2019
Summer Exhibition, Oxmarket Contemporary, Chichester.
Inspired: Creative Collections, City Space Gallery, Winchester.
2018
Hand of the Maker, Triangle Gallery, London.
Inspired: Creative Collections, Willis Museum, Basingstoke.
2017
Pots & Prints, Oxmarket Contemporary, Chichester.
Journey Through Print, City Art Gallery, Southampton.
Red Hot Press: Making A Mark, Rum’s Eg Gallery, Romsey.
2016
CityMade, Rivington Street Gallery, London.
Neo:Print Prize, Gallery 23, Bolton.
2015
SDC Designer Crafts, Mall Galleries, London.
2014
Wood & Fibre, Walford Mill, Wimborne.
Designnext, New York, USA.
.