Those who dream by night

This weekend I saw some art that truly astounded me. At the Haunch of Venison, I saw Patricia Piccinini's extraordinary exhibition Those who dream by night.

After the surreal weirdness of the Art of Change I wasn't expecting to see anything that blew me away quite so much for a while yet, but the Haunch of Venison certainly pulled one out of the hat.

Patricia Piccinini's speciality is to create incredibly complete, realistic models of creatures that don't exist; a sort of surreal taxidermy of creatures of her imagination. Most of these are organic creations and I was childishly amused by her apparent obsession with sphincters. The first couple of creations are relatively small, but remarkably detailed. However, when you venture further into the exhibition, the creatures get more complex and more astonishing.

Upstairs, the jewel in the exhibition's crown must be The Carrier, which was disturbing in the extreme after seeing "In The Blink Of An Eye" at the aforementioned Chinese exhibition. A vaguely humanoid primate carrying an old lady on his hands is done with such incredible attention to detail that it's hard to believe it's not real.

But even though the organic creatures are jaw-droppingly, mind-bogglingly impressive and accomplished, it was her piece called The Lovers that truly blew me away as an accomplishment. It is so flawlessly created that I could have sworn it was a cunning bit of massaging of real equipment.

It's not a massive exhibition, but by heaven it is some of the most extraordinary work I've every seen and even if you aren't taken by the whimsy or horror of the creations, you will be stunned by the craftsmanship and attention to detail.

Definitely one to see!