Daniel Oates is bound for never-never land. He's forsaken his handmade retinue of blue-collar workers, cops and cleaning ladies for a world of myth and fairy tale - one in which metamorphoses, fantasy and imagination are the stuff not of dreams, but of everyday life.

Trained in England as an artisan, Oates, 33, is known for expertly carving wood, resin and styrene. Here mutation and regeneration are the themes of sculptures that depict ears: There's a fleshy ear twisting into a conch-chaped spiral, and an ear sticking out of a Cousin Itt-type mass of shaggy hair. Best of all, Returning Demons features three Elsie the Cow-like harpies flying out of an ear on corkscrewing stalks of wood. Also on view is an enormous pair of dragon wings painted with Edenic scenes of trees, apples, snakes and a tipped-over tortoise with a hand for a head.

There is a stylistic connection (via the carved, colored wood) to Jeff Koons's work, circa 1988. But whereas Koons focused soley on the transformation of cultural artifacts through appropriation, Oates is more concerned with transformation in the narrative sense, as in tales of the supernatural.

Some will say that they miss Oates's less metaphorical pieces - but hey, he should be given a chance to grow. Artists will always deal witht heir obsessions, whether you're willing to follow them or not. For now, Oates courts possibility, and by doing so risks losing part of his audience: sit back and stay tuned.

Daniel Oates is one of a number of artists who creates worlds within worlds. As a sculptor and master carver, his works have a kind of Old World charm tempered with contemporary sophistication and a respect for oddness. Oates can employ tradition with quirkiness in equal measure, as in Under the Influence of Hair. All the pieces are meticulously hand-worked and painted, presenting a kind of playland where fantasy and reality are blurred. Many of the works on view, such as the acid-green painting in the shape of a dragon's wings festooned with snakes, apples and ladders, and the green and purle tortoiseshell with a hand reaching out of the soft underside, are, like any good fairy tale, both delightful and disturbing. They also poist the classic question of identity: Who am I? What is perhaps most intriguing about Oates's show is the openendedness ofthese implied naratives - and the allure of stories yet to be told and identities yet to be defined.