"The Concreatures are cast inner forms of once loved and cherished plush toys. These stuff animals are frozen in a petrified state that solidify their importance and recorded memories of past physical manipulation and emotional associations.

Created from discarded toys and local thrift shops finds, I manipulate the found pieces to create altered visions that redefine and renew their purpose while maintaining elements of it’s prior significance. Hidden inner features are revealed and imprints of fabric and fur remain on the concrete surface marking this former existence. At once each piece simultaneously conveys soft and hard, cute and creepy, comfort and unease.

The iconography of the stuffed toy relates to childhood. Objects are used as an exterior embodiment of childhood neurosis, anxieties, affection, dependencies etc., providing both comfort and companionship. Artist Mike Kelley looks at the stuffed toy as "idealized sexless models by means of which children were to be adapted to family and social norms". (Art at The Turn of the Millennium, 1999,p.270) I display the inner recording of this attachment. The foundation of childhood is thus memorialized in concrete materials used here to record the foundation of personal identity and private history. The element of mass produced toy is removed to reveal the unique: a collectible of modern time. The Concreature serves a new purpose as a permanent piece, a statue, a trophy of sorts." (Bonfanti, 2007)