This signature artwork by Mike Kelley features two handmade dolls that have been reconfigured as a wall-hanging sculpture. Visibly worn and used, with stains and a missing eye, the dolls, which Kelley found at a thrift store, attracted the artist as “adult constructs”—his term for how a toymaker projects the ideas of childhood play and innocence onto a toy. By coupling the dolls in this new configuration, Kelley sought to emulate children’s natural curiosities about subjects such as sexual intimacy and birth. Kelley often placed familiar objects in strange scenarios to stoke a sensation of the uncanny.

Speaking about his own childhood experience, Kelley recalled being traumatized by “very religious, conservative and emotionally repressed” parents. “It was a tragic time for me,” Kelley said. “You can try to get beyond your childhood and I struggle to do it, but if you had a bad childhood, you’re stuck.”