As you can see in the post below this one I chose to sculpt a couple of "mythical" styled creatures by blending together various parts of rubber animals. This type of art is similar to the "cabinet curiosties" seen in the 16th/17th centuries where explorers and scientists would construct various animals or plant forms based on what little information they had, basically creating animals and presenting them as fact.
In more contemporary times artists have recreated this by creating their own fictitional creatures. One such artist is a German man by the name of Thomas Grunfeld. Grunfeld deals with a surreal form of taxidermy where he will piece together parts of different animals and sew them up flawlessly to create new species. His work is quite beautiful and seems to open up a new world of wonder. Some of his work from his "Misfits" exhibiton is posted below. Other artists have done similar things and the practice is becoming more common. For example there is Scott Bibus who is a member of Rouge Taxidermy and produces a more grotesque version of mixed species adding splashes of blood or various organs in odd places. Personally I prefer the slightly more attractive cleaner types of surreal taxidermy.
Compare that to the more gruesome form of taxidermy art by Scott Bibus (found at his etsy store) pictured below.
