Canadian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Jason McLean is known to pack his compositions with playful, juvenile imagery and affable questions and exclamations. With more attention paid to illustrative detail and coherence than most of his other zines, Toasty features black-and-white drawings that read like madcap twists on blueprints for machines or towns. These zany illustrations resemble anthropomorphic maps connecting a fluid internal psyche and “objective” outside markers, each persistently littered with personal statements, pop culture references, and place names. This staple-bound, laser-printed whimsy demonstrates most overtly McLean’s own likening of his work to a “mental map.”
“Recording his daily experiences, observations, and personal stories in a range of media, Jason McLean has likened his work to a ‘mental map.’ He cites Ray Johnson, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Raymond Pettibon as artistic influences, though he also draws inspiration from his children’s drawings, bottle cap designs, stamp art, frozen pizza boxes, and found objects that pique his interest. Recalling the automatic drawings of surrealist artists, his bright, graphic collages and works of ink on paper feature a web of semi-connected words and themes related to pop culture, daily life, and McLean’s inner world and struggles with schizophrenia.” — Artsy