The wonderful part about Burton's work is that it is almost exclusively figures with a comically macabre bent. Characters from his inner world are deformed, distorted, disabled, disturbed and completely, utterly adorable. They have dialogues that have physical manifestations, frizzy hair, bulging eyes, stilt-legs.
The entrance to the exhibit is timed and through a huge orifice of a mouth with protruding teeth. The viewer walks down a long hallway lined with video monitors displaying animation of a Burton character named 'Stain Boy', who leaves deathly and deadly 'stains' wherever he goes. The displays are a bit crowded hundreds of small drawings, the majority in pen and pencil. They are intricate squiggles with an naughty, evil determination about them. There are several figurines on display from his popular stop-motion animation films like 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' s Jack Skellington and all his alternate heads with dozens of expressions from joy to thoughtfulness to horror. The details of the each figure used in these animated films is a small sculpture, a tiny life awaiting the chance in front of the camera to come to life. There are a few costume pieces which bear closer examination, such as Edward Scissorhands' patchwork body suit with actual metal cutlery, all carefully wired to create a finger-like aperture.
The narrow gallery space, the crowds, none of it can take away from the sense of mischievous glee the viewer feels when let into Burton's world. The viewer feels as if they have entered another world, where up is down and wrong is right, to be naughty is nice. The hundreds of characters that gaze back on us off the gallery walls create a parade you want to be part of, even if only in our (or is it Burton's?) dreams.
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