Nina Campbell | Cathay Parade

Cathay Parade depicts an ancient Chinese festival in grand style, a procession of figures and ceremony carried across the wall as a digital print on a wide-width roll. It belongs to the chinoiserie tradition of rooms decorated with narrative scenes, and the wide format lets the composition run with fewer joins, closer to a mural than a repeating paper.

It is made in the United Kingdom. A scene of this ambition wants to be read at length, so it earns its place in dining rooms, hallways and drawing rooms, and it is equally effective treated as a panel on a single wall. Furnishings beside it can stay plain; the parade provides the occasion.