Artwork by Beto Val

Ecuadorian visual artist Beto Val began creating surreal collages during the pandemic. Working with vintage photographs, botanical illustrations, zoological plates, and other archival materials, he composes creatures that seem to emerge from a fantastical ecosystem. He says his images “suggest that nature may be far stranger, more complex, and more inventive than we usually allow ourselves to see” and that his collages “do more than evoke wonder; they gently shift the way we perceive the living world.”