Wisconsin based artists Fred Stonehouse is well known to Chicagoans for his eccentric paintings of crying animals, morphed creatures and tomato-head people. In his newest series, he introduces us to the story of Marsh Baby, a character which haunts the waters of Stonehouse’s wetlands. As the artist states:

I have re-imagined the marsh as the center of a world in which primal dramas are played out.  “Marshland” is a mysterious and murky zone where the intricacies of the human mind and personal psychologies are made manifest in a range of characters drawn from extant folklore and myth, and from the waking dream of the marsh itself.

In Found we see a human head, its face comprised of crying eyes, atop an eagles body splayed before the approaching waters; In Marsh Diver we see an anthropomorphic being rising from the waters with fish in his mouth; In Lost we see a red faced human octopus, swallowing its own tentacles. In Stonehouse’s world, creatures mutate into unknown souls trying to find their way through the weeds. It is a magical world which forces us to suspend our belief in reality and enter a world of fantasy where humans and animals are not who they seem.