Taxidermy Upholstery

Starting from actual foam mounts that taxidermists use, Kelly Rene Jelinek builds life-sized replicas of mounted animal heads using fragments of upholstery fabric. This Taxidermy Upholstery is both lifelike and fantastical.

"As a someone who grew up in rural Wisconsin, I became thoroughly accustomed to seeing taxidermy deer and game mounts - I thought of them as standard items of household decor. Even when I was a small child they never scared or disgusted me - if anything, they fascinated me. That fascination stayed with me into adulthood, and has inspired the artwork that I make today. When I was a teenager, I fell in love with old upholstery and would often come home from flea markets and thriftstores with old chairs for me to experiment on. Later on, when I was in college, the two interests happened to mesh and that's how the first of my upholstered animals were born." - Kelly Rene Jelinek