“I will not burn bridges” (2020), stoneware and mixed media, 23 x 10 x 10 inches

From a dowdy California quail to an incendiary horned lizard, Alessandro Gallo’s peculiar menagerie of animal-human hybrids is teeming with personality. The colorful characters reflect the breadth of interactions occurring every day throughout public spaces as folks encounter others unlike themselves, like a parakeet contorted into a yoga pose or a suit-wearing hooded merganser.

“Lost in Thought” (2017) in collaboration with Beth Cavener

Based in Helena, Montana, the Italian artist likens the animalistic features to a mask or caricature. “I combine it with the silent language of our body and the cultural codes of what we wear in order to portray not only a specific individual, but also the larger groups and subcultures they belong to and, ultimately, the common habitat we all share,” he says.[…]

“We Are Not Who We Seem” (2016) in collaboration with Beth Cavener

More: An Eccentric Cast of Hybrid Creatures Mirrors the Diversity and Humor of Human Experience