Everybody does the same thing when they walk into David Mach's new show, Hell Bent. In the entrance hall, a statue of a woman hangs from a ceiling of giddy height. She is a curvaceous, swimsuited 1950s beauty, diving down and followed by a trail of foamy, dreamy blue water. Her face is at the eye-level of visitors, and for all the scale and drama of the piece, you notice a light dusting of freckles on her nose. Everyone stops, looks up and smiles. And those broad smiles remain.
Upstairs in a busy, almost cluttered gallery showing new pieces alongside projects from the past decade, Mach's work continues its feel-good effect. Visitors laugh and point as they take in the savage, hilarious incongruity of his sculptures. A gnome installation dominates the space: a gaggle of chainsaw-wielding garden gnomes lie about on what looks like the corner of a desert island, midway through a battle; people sit on benches nearby, gazing at this kitsch, inert scene. Two giant coat hanger sculptures (one is a naked woman, the other an astronaut) gleam under the lights. There is a teddy bears' picnic of sorts, with clutches of bears brandishing weapons - food mixers, drills - and a large grizzly bear holding two chainsaws. His teeth are bared in provocation, yet he is still, stuffed and perched on a taxidermist's plinth. Again, people beam in his presence.
The coat hanger sculptures apart, Mach's work here is on a smaller, more intimate scale than we are used to. Around the walls, a series of collages capture the eccentric flurry of signs, symbols and images that bombard us daily. These are works you have to peer into, spend time with. Wisely displayed in a side room, away from the carnival atmosphere of the main gallery, is a row of heads made from matches, delicate and jewel-like in their colours. Though small, they are made up of thousands of parts and are the result of intense labour and serious craft. This is something audiences sometimes miss in Mach's larger works, whose scale and audacity often simply stuns.
Until September 29. Details: 0141-229 1996.
