You may have seen Takeshi Yamada and his sea-rabbit Seara at Coney Island, where he once lived in his gallery. Yamada created the rabbit with webbed feet from an old coat and artificial animal parts. She is the most famous of the many fabulous taxidermy creatures and other artworks that fill his home.
Yamada lives in his cramped two-bedroom East New York apartment among a prodigious collection of curious creatures of his own making. There, you’ll discover a bizarre menagerie of multi-headed mutants, enormous mythical beasts, pint-sized merchildren, and the remains of several space aliens, as well as stacks upon stacks of canvasses filled with surrealist self-portraits and scenes of mythic warfare.
Yamada and his artwork once lived in Coney Island, in the artist’s former Museum of World Wonders, until Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012. After the hurricane caused irreparable damage to Yamada’s gallery and home,he moved further inland along with his artwork, which, without a gallery, has become an assemblage of quiet but peculiar housemates.
Zoë Bernard visited Yamada to talk about his artworks and where they came from. Take a look at some of them, including Seara, a six-eyed goat, and alien skulls at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Viktorsha Uliyanova)