Freya Jobbins' Freaky Dismembered Doll Portraits

Remember those kids in elementary school that use to mutilate their toys? I'm talking about those kids that use to pop off action figures' heads and put them on Barbie bodies or make amputees out of their Raggedy Ann dolls.

Well, it turns out they weren't all sociopaths-in-the-making. Some of them were just misunderstood artists, as Australian sculptor Freya Jobbins proves.

Jobbins collects and assembles discarded children's toys to create playful, yet jarring portraits of people and cultural icons.

Her works are a composite of plastic eyes ripped from the sockets of blinking baby dolls, halved heads, detached arms, and the smooth, shiny pecs and glutes of a Ken doll that little girls once fawned over.

Legos, Tonka trucks, rubber dinosaurs, and Happy Meal toys occasionally appear in her pieces as well.

Jobbins refers to her humanoid sculptures as "an artistic exploration of the relationship between consumerism and the culture of up-cycling and recycling." Once beloved but now abandoned toys are reborn into collectible pieces of art.

This movement from the toy chest to the gallery blurs the lines that divide the commercial and fine art worlds and makes audiences view these items in a very different, unexpected light.

All images are courtesy of http://freyajobbins.com.