TOP 10: CREATURE FEATURE

Emily Llamazales is an interdisciplinary artist whose work draws from science-fiction and reimagined biology in order to address concerns about our ecological future. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studio Art and Design from the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art (2019), was selected as a finalist for the 2023 Emerging Artist Fellowship by Atlanta Celebrates Photography and awarded a 2022/2023 Emerging Artist Award from the Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs. Working across sculpture, writing, and time-based media, she weaves together narratives of imaginative world building and speculative evolutionary traits, utilizing a collection of found objects and landscape photography.

Llamazales currently lives and works in Stone Mountain, GA as a grant writer for non-profits. She previously served as the Program and Development Coordinator at Burnaway, a non-profit magazine of contemporary art criticism from the South.

One of my favorite pastimes is combing the beach for unique shells while imagining what fleshy mutation might inhabit them and bring forth a new order of biology right before me. It's silly, but like my imagination, the most successful monsters and cryptids in pop-culture almost always pull their most stunning and horrifying features from real animal counterparts. The creatures that scare us the most might move in unexpected ways, have unusual proportions or make terrifying sounds. Sometimes they’ll be a result of our own making like Godzilla or other Kaiju — holding a mirror up to their makers, rightfully seeking revenge for humans' mistreatment of the earth.

I’ve always been drawn to the uncanny and otherworldly, often indulging this inclination through a passion for sci-fi and horror films. [Cue The X-Files theme!] This fascination, combined with an interest in biology and deep concern for our environment, has filled my studio research with an abundance of organisms that exhibit unique adaptations to harsh environments. I probe for signs of collaborative, mutable and incredibly adaptive organisms and wonder if one day they might be able to digest all our plastic or teach us something about resilience. Some of these creatures are fictional threats, others are invasive species that cause real harm. Despite the fear they cause, they remain poetically beautiful and hopeful to me. Each of these creatures exhibit anatomy or characteristics that I find to be fascinating (some grotesquely so) and inspiring for my own work as an artist. Through my obsession, I've learned that you don’t have to look far from earth to see an alien.