Patricia Piccinini: With Open Arms

Encompassing human, animal and hybrid forms, this exhibition opens with an arresting series of figures in seductive colours that riff on the contemporary fetish for sneaker wear.

Arranged on freshly found 'yellow box' plinths, these diminutive creatures attest to artist Patricia Piccinini’s habit of bringing together unlikely bedfellows to create art objects that are new, distinctive and emblematic of the culture from which they are drawn.

'I am returning to a very personal hybridity that I have explored for many years, merging organic creatures and bodies with entirely artificial objects,' says Piccinini. 'So … we find birds – representing freedom, optimism, resilience – intermingling with another long-held fascination of mine: shoes.'

'Like birds, shoes are fascinating both aesthetically and symbolically. Shoes, especially sneakers, are ubiquitous … yet we rarely stop to think of the extraordinary technologies behind them.'