Today, we look at the hyperrealist sculptures of Patricia Piccinini.  Piccinini was born in 1965 in Freetown, Sierra Leone and moved to Australia in 1972.  Piccinini has a Bachelor of Arts (Economic History), from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Arts in Painting from the Victorian College of the Arts.

To construct her bizarre but lovable characters, Piccinini uses a number of ingredients including silicone, fibreglass, human hair, leather, plywood, clothing, polyurethane, leather, and mdf.

Piccinini has received worldwide attention for her works that explore themes of biotechnology and contemporary ideas about nature that take us to a “post-Darwinian destination populated with fantastical creatures, new communities and bioethical conundrums.”

Children are often featured in Piccinini’s sculptures: “A young child represents possibility, both positive and negative. Also babies don’t make judgments. The world is totally new to them – they just take it in. They have no expectation and are always surprised. Children aren’t threatening. On the contrary, they bring out the best in us; we want to care for them, protect them. I use children to evoke the idea of vulnerability. In my work, it is often the creatures that seem vulnerable. They are mostly reliant on us and at our mercy.”

Piccinini is not only a sculptor, but works in a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, video, sound, interactive CD’s, and digital images. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide including Australia, New York, Japan, Peru and the Philippines, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, France, Italy, Wales, Korea, and New Zealand.

To explore more of Patricia Piccinini’s diverse works, visit PatriciaPiccinini.net.

Souces: Brooklyn Museum, National Gallery of Victoria