My imagery centers on the re-visioning of the human body in an age of increasingly visible and accessible biotechnology and cosmetic surgery practices.   I explore ways in which these practices influence our perceptions of beauty, deformity and culturally accepted notions of physical normality. Working primarily with printmaking, sculpture and photography, I create an imaginary world of hybrids and mutants, intended to provoke inquiry about our potential future forms and how we perceive physical otherness.

The initial stage in the production of these images, involves constructing my own mutant neo-nate forms – a combination of baby doll parts, bandages and plaster. I employ dolls to play out possible future realities in much the same way that children enact possible future lives through doll play. The dolls in my work are puppets, representative of human life at a very vulnerable stage of development, susceptible to genetic alteration, mutation and surgical manipulation.

These strange formations are drawn and photographed, and then translated into the final printed images combining layers of intaglio with digital prints, chin colle and wax. Through the process of translating my creations from one medium to another, I am exploring the potential transcendence of the monstrous to the marvelous, the grotesque to the sublime.

My work is ironically transgressive - my creatures, neo-nates and imperfecti are neither human nor animal yet they do not appear deformed; rather they are new formations of a species whose function and reason for existence is questionable at best.

Claude Jones