Ian McLean is Senior Research Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Wollongong. He has published extensively on Australian art and particularly Aboriginal art within a contemporary context. His books include How Aborigines Invented the Idea of Contemporary Art, White Aborigines Identity Politics in Australian Art, and Art of Gordon Bennett (with a chapter by Gordon Bennett). He is a former advisory board member of Third Text, and currently on the advisory boards of World Art and National Identities.

Ian McLean investigates the transculturation of colonial cultures, particularly as they manifest in Australian visual art. He is currently researching intersections that have occurred between Australian Indigenous and Western artists in historical and contemporary contexts.