He studied Fine Art Printmaking at the Royal College of Art between 2004 and 2007, following earlier studies at Goldsmiths College and Camberwell School of Art. From 2010 to 2012 he was Print Fellow at the Royal Academy Schools. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions including the V&A Museum in London, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Academia di Venezia, Temple Bar Gallery in Dublin, G39 Gallery in Cardiff, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Brazil, William Morris Gallery, and Lismore Castle in County Waterford. His works are held in public and private collections across Europe and the United States.
Initially working with ceramics through industrial processes such as mould-making and slip-casting, McClelland approached clay as a site of imprint, labour, and memory. His practice later shifted toward print media, where analogue and digital manipulations foreground the instability of reproduction. Misregistered prints, degraded photocopies, and fragmented images become traces of both presence and absence.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, his work has increasingly focused on translating compressed digital “poor images” into slow, labour-intensive analogue processes such as woodcut. Rather than restoring authenticity, these works emphasise fragility, disappearance, and persistence. Through carving, printing, layering, and repetition, McClelland examines how labour and memory remain embedded within images despite digital circulation and decay.
Alongside his studio practice, he has collaborated on educational and public projects with organisations including Tate, Art on the Underground, Camden Arts Centre, the Crafts Council, and Green Man Festival, from 2022-2025 curated the public print initiative Cypher BILLBOARD in North London.