Top left: Brain Intercourse, 2004. Bottom Left: Theo Burp, 2002. Right: AMBIVALENCE, 2006.

Jun Takahashi has teamed up again with photographer Yoshie Tominaga, for this eerie still life shoot of his UNDERCOVER stuffed dolls and customised statues.

The shoot is entitled ‘Kamidana‘, which refers to the Japanese sacred miniature shrines of the Shinto religion, implying an almost religious significance to the stuffed dolls entrapped within their dark, triangular ‘shrines’. Takahashi has also decorated porcelain busts (reminiscent of traditional Greek sculpture) with nails and studs, crowning one with Jesus’ crown-of-thorns in barbed wire, and casting another with three heads (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil). The final image is of a metallic buddha’s head also lying within the triangular frame, with its eyes blacked out with a thick bar, rendering it blind.

Far Left: Testtube Yogi, 2001. Left: Tesstube Yeti, 2001. Right: Tales of Zamiang, 2005.

Left: For Ann, 2006. Top Right: U & I, 2006. Bottom Right: Cerebrus, 2006.

Right: Blind Buddha, 2004.