The Glasgow School of Art

Chad McCail
'Work' listen to audio recording

Chad McCail is interested in the relationship between propaganda, educational graphics and art. He is currently working on a series of pictures that dramatise particular conflicts. Employing the style of a tableau vivant, toys and models are foregrounded in his images, their poses reflecting and commenting upon action that takes place behind them; the use of oblique and poetic texts within the imagery interrupting the silence of the classic 'tableau'. Referencing key influences upon his work (including Wilhelm Reich, A. S. Neill and Stanley Milgram) McCail will discuss his interests in how mass obedience is maintained, how relationships between people can be strengthened, alternative kinds of education and, most significantly, how he addresses these ideas as an artist.

Chad McCail graduated from Goldsmith's College, University of London in 1989.  His work has been exhibited extensively in Europe and North America where examples are also held in museum collections:  for example, in Luxembourg, Zurich, Geneva, New York and, in Edinburgh, at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.  Major showings of his work include:  'People take turns to do difficult jobs', Laurent Delaye Gallery, London in 2000; 'Life is driven by the desire for pleasure', Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh in 2003; and 'We are not dead', Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow in 2006.  He lives and works in South Lanarkshire.