From 25 January to 29 April a lens-based animation work by Alex McLeod will be exhibited at UrbanScreen’s Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre in Vancouver. The work, titled PHANTASMAGORIA, will be projected onto the building’s west wall from thirty minutes after sunset until midnight.

PHANTASMAGORIA is part of the 2018 Capture Photography Festival, which runs from 1-30 April 2018.

PHANTASMAGORIA brings to life a digital landscape produced using software. The landscape is alternately three-dimensional and two-dimensional. This interplay challenges the way we think about the physical and digital dimensions of the world we live in, as well as conjuring possible alternative worlds. In a constant game of elaboration, McLeod’s subjects remind us of the rules which govern our reality before breaking them in a colorful display of artifice.

In McLeod’s constructed universe, opulent creatures, vibrant textures and complex geometric forms coexist in an evolving series of animated tableaux. The forms have enough proximity to living creatures to inspire empathy and examination of our projected desires and egos. At the same time they are inorganic enough to remind us of their constructed origins and of the role the algorithm plays in the contemporary world.

On 27 April at 7pm Alex McLeod will host a workshop showing visitors to Surrey Art Gallery his working practice with live commentary over a recorded work session. The workshop will be followed by a group visit to PHANTASMAGORIA with the artist.

The exhibition is accompanied by an essay commissioned by Sky Goodden, founder and editor of Momus journal of art criticism; the essay will be available online as part of the Surrey Art Gallery Presents series.