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Originality can be hard to come by as far as anything creative goes, with works often drawing on a myriad of pre-existing inspiration sources, techniques and aesthetics recycled over time. London-based artist Debbie Lawson‘s sculptures, however, are probably like nothing you’ve ever seen before, combining Persian carpets with taxidermy-esque animal figures.

Lawson’s most recent exhibition, Bear Cartouche at the John Martin Gallery in London, is the latest in this series, whereby flora and fauna emerge from the intricately patterned, culturally rich backdrop of a Persian carpet. An immersive ‘visual slippage’ is created as the work alternates between two dimensions and three. Using the domestic interior as a starting point, Lawson creates animated hybrids, with implications of a quietly sinister inner life and aspirations to be bigger than themselves.

Related: Iranian Photographer Jalal Sepehr’s Images Translate a Community’s Hardship into a Visual Metaphor.

Lawson builds the animals from the ground up, hand sculpting them out of chicken wire and masking tape before covering them with the hanging rugs. The dense pattern of the carpets appears to morph into physical form, creating an interplay of both camouflage and intense display, depending on the angle from which you view the work. Her animalistic figures include a menacing 2.5m tall bear, a moose head, and crocodile. Other works include pot plants, pieces of fruit, and flocks of seagulls. The works infiltrate the safe predictability of domestic settings, prompting a sense of shock and bewilderment that transports viewers into a fantasy realm.

A graduate of the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, Lawson’s work is held in The Saatchi Gallery, The House of Lords, Nottingham Castle Museum, University of the Arts London, The University of Dundee and private collections in the UK and worldwide.

Lawson is soon to have her first piece on display in Sydney, a commission for the Old Clare Hotel in Chippendale.

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