We find ourselves in the intersection between cute and creepy when we’re looking at the Mari Shimizu‘s fantasy dolls, which despite being adorable on the outside, hide dark and twisted worlds inside their bellies.
These ball-joint dolls by craftswoman from Amakusa, Kumamoto, Japan were inspired by the surrealist movement and especially by the photographer’s Hans Bellmer scandalous works with dolls.
The artist explores topics like mythology, religion, death and nature: “The body resembles a sentence that seems to invite us to dismantle it into its component letters, so that its true meaning may be revealed ever anew through an endless stream of anagrams,” says Mari.
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