Inspired by the theatrical stage sets and exaggerated characters of early stop-motion animation, Paul Latislaw’s works are infused with both humor and the perturbed. Cartoonishly rounded landscapes and figures with impishly bulbous features populate Latislaw’s artworks, setting the stage for a playful game where innocence and derangement are delicately indistinguishable.

Laboriously transforming needle felted wool into richly animated sculptures, Latislaw presents us with the denizens of this mind-game: a drunken ‘come-hither’ horse with twisting legs; a bear, a goose, and a rabbit dragging a captive chicken caught in a dramatic bar fight; and a tangle of rabbits chasing bottles and each other (a euphemism for inebriation) animate Latislaw’s narratives with camp, queerness and irreverence. 

For Latislaw, each figure informs the following one in a slow process of “neurotic story-building.” The concrete details of the narrative are not as important to the artist, however, as the formal and creative possibilities each part of the sequence affords—each arrangement allowing for new associations and imagining. Despite their child-like appearance, each sculpture is meticulously crafted; curved and flowing details revisited and perfected. With their off-white hue perched atop white pedestals, the sculptures allude to traditional marble statuary but are composed of wool—a soft material with working class and craft associations.

The artist’s landscape paintings are made in tandem with the sculptures. Similarly infused with dream-like curving shapes, for Latislaw, the paintings have become a backdrop to this afflicted stage set. Painted in acrylic on canvas, the paintings share the pillowy forms of the sculptures, working as an insistent fantasy of actual nature. The idea of an unadulterated landscape as a clean slate—a place for narrative yet to be placed—is a point of fascination for the artist. Together, the sculptures and paintings create an entire picture, character and environment, for a world that is at once humorous and brimming with mischievous potential.

Paul Latislaw was born in Los Angeles, California. He graduated with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2016. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York