Some art galleries feel as sanitized as hospitals, as quite as libraries, and as devoid of fun as an SAT test room. But any museum filled with the work of Spencer Hansen will feel a lot more like F.A.O. Schwartz at its playful heights. Here’s more from COLOSSAL:

Sporting pinecone-esque suits or masks with gilded antennae, the alien creatures that surface in Spencer Hansen’s Bali workshop appear to be both of this world and not. The artist…recycles familiar, natural materials like wood, fur, and bone, envisioning mysterious but friendly characters with skeletal features and chiseled bodies. Ranging from a few inches high to life-sized, the uncanny sculptures are part of an ever-growing universe salvaged from the scraps of waste materials…. A statement about the exhibition describes his childhood as a major influence on this body of work, explaining:

Spencer was born in rural Idaho, the youngest of eight children. As a child, he found solace in daydreaming. His imagination offered relief from the confusing stories that knit together his family’s deep religious beliefs. He formed his own narratives in a world he belonged to, an internal landscape inhabited by creatures. His world shaped by stories, so closely tied to his identity, is the foundation of his sculptural works.

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