Japanese artist Shintaro Ohata places sculptures in front of paintings to create wondrous scenes inspired by childhood. They play out every day encounters between his child subjects, their pets and imaginary friends with the world around them. While their lives may seem ordinary for the most part, Ohata’s playful and impressionistic style make them feel like fantasies. They are sculpted from polystyrene which are then painted to perfectly match their traditional 2D acrylic backgrounds. Ohata’s unique blend of the 2D and 3D world was born out of an interest to more closely reach his audience. “The moment I wish to create my work is the same as the moment when a character in my painting “begins” to feel something. If I could do so, and viewers of my work could feel something continued from the “beginning”, my painting would expand beyond myself and reach each of you,” he says. The effect is emotive and oftentimes, tricks the eye. His displays are commonly mistaken for being dramatically lit, but their dynamism is the result of his vibrant color palette and expressive design. Broken free of their canvases, Ohata’s subjects reach out into our world only to take us into Ohata’s imaginary one.
Of all the creatures on the planet, perhaps no other has inspired us quite like birds; they are strong, light, beautiful, and have the freedom to go anywhere they want to go. Birds have long inspired artist Tom Hill's mixed media sculptures made of carved wood, forged copper, and steel. The birds that he builds are characterizations of real species like owls and and black birds, capturing their natural personalities in a playful, even cartoonish way. He gives them big, rounded and expressive eyes, delicate feathers spun out of hardy wires, and long, spindly legs. "I tend to think of all my pieces as character studies. Spend a few seconds observing a bird; the turn of the head, the flash of an eye, puffed up feathers; each gesture conveys a wealth of visual material for the artist as we see the bird consider and interact intelligently with the world around it," he says.
The enchanting yet eerie ceramic sculptures of San Francisco based artist 
South Korea-born, Brooklyn-based artist 
In the hands of KT Beans, a seashell takes on unsettling qualities. The sculptor says she creates "oddities for humans of the future”: Teeth, eyes, and other human body parts and organs emerge out of unexpected places.