Chad McCail : Toy

14 Feb-19 Apr 2020

Overview

The artist Chad McCail has spent three years developing a single monumental new work specifically for Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art. This exhibition presents an enormous three-dimensional cityscape that fills the entire gallery and which we enter into. Like any city, it contains all of the institutions we are familiar as part of our journey from the cradle to the grave: schools, factories, offices= and workplaces, hospitals, military sites, and beyond. The city is more like a toyscape than architectural model, being created on an alarming scale that is a little too close to our own for comfort. And in McCail’s work, everything is transfigured into a mythical space, in which life as we know it is lived out at one remove – and realistic scenarios seem closer to science-fiction than fact. Here, a war is being waged between gigantic creatures that are fighting not only for control of the resources of this city, but for its soul. The work is full of extraordinary details which creates an intense and almost surreal experience for visitors.