Michael Schall’s large-scale graphite works on paper describe imagined intersections between majestic natural environments and man-made interventions. In his invented worlds the rippling stone surface of a grand butte suddenly ends and continues as a grid-like, metallic structure. In another drawing, cables and complex systems of pipes undergird and conjoin mountain plateaus. Schall notes

I draw imagined landscapes where instruments of human industry attempt to somehow alter the surface of the earth. Shown in various stages of construction and decay, these illogical human projects stem from my interest in the ways cities sprawl, in the location of landfills and power plants, in the course of events that led to the abandonment of drive-in movies. ...The images depicted in my drawings are of worlds where both the futility and the exhilarating potential of our grand constructions are celebrated with equal fervor. (Schall, 2007)

Schall’s works have been compared to “an emerging class of notable contemporaries. Paul Noble, Robyn O’Neil, and David Thorpe come to mind. ... Schall’s worlds, like others in this realm, have the luxury of finding frontiers and describing cosmologies within a self-defined dimension that is immune from extra-wordly exigencies, and this along with Schall’s individual sensibility makes his illogical world one worth visiting.” (Shane McAdams, The Brooklyn Rail, February 2006)