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‘JULIA RANDALL DECOYS AND LURES’ ON VIEW AT JEFF BAILEY GALLERY

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NEW YORK CITY — Jeff Bailey Gallery presents the exhibition, “Julia Randall, Decoys and Lures,” on view through March 17.

In a series of colored pencil drawings, Randall has created strange flowers and plants hybridized with human and animal traits. Abundantly detailed and saturated with color, each flower and plant initially appears to be an incredibly precise botanical or naturalia drawing. Yet they reveal themselves to be bizarre fetish objects, incorporating human elements such as skin, hair and tongues.

Inspired by cloning, genetically modified food and plants, plastic surgery and other forms of unnatural intervention, these humanoid hybrids are depicted as decoys. They entice other species from their normal ecosystem, ultimately ensnaring birds, butterflies and other insects. The “Decoys” hint at the perils of human meddling with the natural world.

In “Decoy #4,” raw meat becomes part of a parrot tulip’s petals. Drawn fingerprints ostensibly allude to someone reaching out and touching the drawing, leaving their marks behind.

Other trompe l’oeil effects, like paper punctures, thrust the decoys into space and implicate the viewer. The “Lures” are drawings of mouths and tongues in rapid motion, suggesting speech and beckoning the viewer.

This is Randall’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Her work was most recently on view in the group exhibition “Twice Drawn” at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

The gallery is at 511 West 25th Street. For information, www.baileygallery.com or 212-989-0156.