Art Department

Alisa Nizhniy

Unlike the development of robotics, which has been generously explored in art, fashion, and film, the biological revolution is a fresh concept worth fantasizing about. Japanese-born visual artist Masako Onodera acquaints us with the prospect of genetic design through an aesthetic of borderline-repulsive elegance.

Onodera, who specializes in jewelry and sculpture, primarily uses found objects, imitation pearls, wool, and balloons to create lifelike, seductive works with titles such as “Eruption,” “Connective Tissue,” “Circulation,” and “The Way of Flesh" (a series of balloon sculptures, which depicts the decay of body tissue over time). Onodera describes his art as "grotesque, and peculiar, but oddly appealing, simulated body parts of appendages... both strange and sensual.” He continues, “My work becomes theatre for the notion of self without decoration."

All photos courtesy of: Masako Onodera