Dennis Cooper + Gisèle Vienne
These eerie, alluring, adolescent life-size dolls were created for the theater/performance pieces collaborated on by writer Dennis Cooper and Gisèle Vienne since 2004. As Cooper says, “We consider the dolls to be actors in our works almost on a par with the human performers, and, although the dolls aren’t credited individually in the works, they each have names and fictional biographies constructed by Gisele. These biographies are used to determine which roles might be suited to their ‘personalities’. Some of the dolls have been featured in multiple works, and several have played both male and female roles.”




Tags: bizarre, blood, dolls, eerie, expressive, innocence/menace, life-sized, lolita-esque, performance art, sinister arts and crafts, surreal, symbolism, theater, trauma, uncanny, white
The Popovy Sisters’ “mod.” Collection

Tags: alien beauty, architectural fashion, avant-garde, bjds, collars, conceptual fashion, distorted bodies, dolls, edo-period japan, futuristic, hair, headdresses, historically inspired, hoopskirts, kabuki-inspired, otherworldly, red and white, samurai mask, white hair
Roses and Thorns: The Art of Liza Corbett




Tags: animals, art shows, baroque, bird wings, branches, deer, dolls, fairy tales, flowers, flowers in hair, ghosts, greek mythology, hair, historically inspired, illustrations, intricate line drawings, jeremy hush, little red riding hood, liza corbett, macabre, nature, neo-victorian, red, roses, skulls, soft color, surreal, swan, victorian, wolves
Deathly Sweet: Macabre Ceramics by Maria Rubinke



Tags: babies, blood, ceramics, children, deer, dolls, innocence/menace, macabre, porcelain, red and white, sculptures, weird sculptures
Image of the Day

Alice by Nita CollinsSee my previous post on Nita Collins’ work here.
Tags: creepy, dolls, eerie, hauntingly beautiful, nita collins, sculptures
Dolls by Arume Emura
Arume Emura makes beautiful, creepy, expressive custom ball-jointed dolls, wraith-like, haunted-looking, conjoined, distorted, twisted, and surreal.










Tags: bjds, distorted bodies, dolls, hauntingly beautiful, masks, sculptures, twins/doppelgangers/doubles
Gorgeous and Grotesque: The Art-Dolls of Nita Collins
Nita Collins’ doll-sculptures creep me out and exhilarate me. Disturbing, beautiful, verging on the grotesque, delicately crafted, flawlessly executed, melancholically tender, realistic to the point of being unnerving – adorned with puckered scars, ragged holes in chests, and a panoply of peculiar, unique marks on their flesh that seem to have come straight from Nita’s imagination and heart – the tortured, sweetly exquisite bodies and faces of these dolls are a singular, constant mixture of provocative and moving. They are lovingly scarred, divinely imagined, different from any other dolls I’ve seen. Nita Collins has a unique talent manifest in these gorgeous, poignant art-dolls. Check out her blog here.

Tags: bizarre, dark fairy tales, distorted bodies, dollflesh, dolls, emotive, expressive, hauntingly beautiful, nita collins, realism, scars, sculptures, strange beauty, sweet/melancholy, trauma, virtuoso, visceral
Jessica Harrison’s “Breaking” Series
In this series of ceramic sculptures, artist Jessica Harrison undermines and perverts the kitschy sentimentality of porcelain figurines by “breaking” them, casting a macabre twist on the familiar decorative art form. 19th-century ladies with vacantly blithe expressions hold their own severed, gory-edged head in their lap, gaily dangle their bloody eyeballs above them, and with fleshless, skeletal face recline daintily on a chaise longue. I would love to have these doll-sculptures in my home, they are such clever miniature subversions of prim and happy porcelain figurines, having a dimension of interest that the traditional harmlessly sweet figurines never possess.


Tags: blood, ceramics, conceptual, dolls, evisceration, exposed anatomy, figurines, gory, installation art, macabre, porcelain, sculptures, sinister arts and crafts, skeleton, victorian, weird sculptures
The Drawings of Mako
Gorgeously delicate line drawings featuring macabre/erotic depictions of languid maidens tangled up in choking undergrowth, deadly flora, murderous branches, their hearts and anatomies (literally) exposed, from Japanese artist Mako.



Tags: anatomical-themed, black and white, death and the maiden, dolls, erotic, femininity, intricate line drawings, nature, skeleton, strings, surreal
Rotten Little Darlings: The Art of Zhang Peng


Zhang Peng creates creepy and lush photomanipulations of doll-like little girls, each of which portrays a perverted, twisted innocence as the subjects are caught in the midst of acts of violence – still lifes with a quietly macabre quality. These images seem, to me, to make a statement about the role of innocence in contemporary Chinese culture, the odd midway that women occupy between child and object, and the shrine of youth, subverted and corrupted.
Tags: bathtubs, children, dolls, innocence/menace, pop surrealism, red and white, roses, zhang peng
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