MONTREAL - One installation looks coldly futuristic with towers made of mirrors. Another is a bizarre aviary populated by businessmen with bird heads. Then there's the sculpture on a downtown Montreal street that looks like a warrior angel with what seems like tendrils swirling out of its neck.
It's no wonder some people compare David Altmejd's art to an ever-evolving ecosystem.
The variety of materials incorporated into the works seems endless and includes plastic flowers, fake jewelry and decomposing resin werewolf heads.
A growing sensation on the international art scene, Altmejd is being introduced to film and television viewers in a new documentary and a PBS TV profile.
"Chaorismatique -- David Altmejd, sculpteur" is screening now at Montreal's International Festival of Films on Art and scheduled for broadcast next month on ARTV. An English-language version of the mainly French film is currently in the works.
Altmejd will also be featured in the "Boundaries" episode of "Art in the 21st Century" to be broadcast on PBS on April 20.
Both look at how the 37-year-old Montrealer comes up with the ideas that take such fantastic shape in his creations.
"It's just evolving organically" is how Altmejd describes his process in an interview from his New York studio.
"Every sculpture I make sort of opens up doors for new ideas. I isolate those ideas in the following piece and I push them further."
That's where the werewolf heads come in, by the way. He considered using resin human body parts but figured that had become something of a cliche in contemporary art.
"I just thought that if it was a werewolf body part then it would be just as powerful but it would be weird instead of being familiar," Altmejd said. "Then as I integrated it, I realized that it was also suggestive of transformation."
He's fascinated with the whole idea of transformation -- something that comes from a childhood interest in science and biology -- and that's what informs most of his work, which ranges from the beautiful to the discomforting.
"I'm really interested in beauty, and the disturbing part for me is essential to make the beautiful aspect more crisp," he said.
"You can really, really feel and experience the beauty aspect of the work if it's put in contrast with something else. It brings it out."
Altmejd acknowledges art was not always his consuming passion.
"I wanted to be an evolutionary biologist," he explains. "I'm still really interested in the subject and I was interested in it since I was a teenager."
He read voraciously about it and had a "childlike fascination" with it until he went to college and the hard reality set in.
"I had sort of invented my own way of understanding things and approaching things and then when I started science in college, I realized I had to start learning a specific language all over again.
"Then I realized that what I was interested in was inventing a language, not learning a language. I just thought that art was an area that was actually encouraging the invention of language."
But he's not trying to send a message through his art, which nods to sci-fi, fantasy and horror even though he says he pays little attention to the genres. He does like it when his works have "narrative potential."
"I'm not interested in specifics in meaning. I just want to make complex objects that feel like they have their own intelligence, their own sexuality, objects that feel like they're able to tell their own stories and generate their own meaning."
In "Chaorismatique," filmmaker Renald Bellemare is able to give an especially informed view of the artist since Altmejd is his half-brother and has known him for 20 years.
The film was made over five years and follows Altmejd to the prestigious Venice Biennale, where he represented Canada in 2007, and shows in Denver, London, New York and Montreal.
He doesn't think being related to Altmejd caused him to sacrifice objectivity. In fact, it may have helped the film.
"He's not very extroverted," Bellemare explained. "I was fascinated by his work anyway. I've done many documentaries about artists and there's always a relationship that you build. That's important."
Bellemare said he enjoyed filming Altmejd's creations.
"The scale of his work is something that's really amazing and also the infinite details," Bellemare said in an interview. "You can look at it from so many angles and it's all different."
Altmejd, who is working on an exhibition for Montreal as well as sculptures for shows in London and Paris this year, moved to New York in 1999 because he found his hometown too distracting.
"For me, it's difficult to work in Montreal," he said. "I can't really focus on the work that well. I don't have any emotional attachment to New York so it's a work city. I work really, really well."
He found it to be a "weird moment" when he watched himself in the documentary and said he never really thinks about his fame.
"I'm really, really focused on the work," he said. "That's all I think about, 24-7."
