Somewhere on the spectrum between low-maintenance house pets and minimalist sculptures lie Stephanie Metz's needle-felted wool pieces. Amorphozoa are animals without mouths or obvious internal organs. Shapeless. Unclassifiable. Indefinite. Metz's work is definitely organic, tactile, sensuously attractive, formally beautiful. The process of creating them involves jabbing barbed needles hundreds of thousands of times into animal hair. But even without knowing about the hazardous process, something about them feels a bit dangerous -- in the way that messing with biology often does.

Stephanie Metz lives and works in San Jose. This is her first solo exhibition.

Amorphozoa 9, 2009