Patricia Piccinini is well-known for her vivid hybrid creatures, almost-real beings crafted with such attention to detail you can pick out each individual hair follicle. Her hyper-realistic silicone sculpture The Young Family, for example, which was created for the Venice Biennale in 2003, depicts a naked half-dog half-human hybrid, with long ears and human-like hands and feet, reclining as her puppies feed, the creatures so life-like you can almost see them breathing. But Piccinini’s art is just as notable for the emotions it provokes, be they discomfort, empathy or – as the title of her new exhibition at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art puts it – “Curious Affection”.

When we speak, the artist has just come from dealing with a “production crisis” in the studio – which sounds ominous given the creatures she creates – but she’s relaxed on the phone. “There’s always something,” she brushes it off. “That’s OK, that’s part of making.”

Patricia Piccinini, QAGOMA, Curious AffectionPatricia Piccinini. Photo © Phoebe Powell

She’s been making for more than 20 years and the exhibition in Brisbane, which will take up the entire bottom floor of the Gallery of Modern Art, will include one gallery...