Using discarded stuffed toys and other local thrift shop finds, artist Ross Bonfanti manipulates these mass-produced objects to construct original mixed media sculptures predominately made in concrete. Bonfanti relates his own lifelong emotional experiences to his work while exploring themes commenting on commodity fetishism and the disposableness of consumer pop culture. Through the juxtaposition of materials, he creates an arresting tension between the expectation of softness and the reality of hardness, between the fleeting and the permanent, between the memories of childhood and the stresses of adulthood. They are touched with both humor and pathos. Ross Bonfanti, a graduate of Ontario College of Art and Design, was born in1969, Toronto, Canada. His work is held in many private collections across Canada, USA, Europe, UK, Australia and Asia, notably Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institute (Washington DC, USA), The Drake Hotel (Toronto, Canada), 21 C Museum Hotels (Louisville, Kentucky, USA), Boca Raton Museum of Art (Boca Raton, Florida, USA), Canada Council for the Arts (ArtBank, Ottawa, Canada).