Don’t let Penny Byrne near your mantelpiece of dusty porcelain figurines. Her first solo Sydney show Blood, Sweat and Fears is currently on at the Sullivan Strumpf gallery in Paddington, and her exploration (and disfiguration) of things kitsch, saccharine, and twee is not to be missed.

Trained in ceramics conservation, Melbourne-based Byrne, 41, says she won’t destroy important decorative art but the poor copies of the originals are “just asking for trouble." Her sculptures prick the conscience with their political content, dealing with issues such as human rights, war, political corruption, Japanese whaling, plastic surgery, US foreign policy, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

Sourcing op-shops and eBay, Byrne uses twentieth-century Japanese mass-produced versions of decorative ornaments, and recontextualises them. Making use of her eye for possibility and her skills in ceramics, she transforms the cute, banal and farcical objects to give them meaning, humour and wit. Sweet curly haired boys, elegant ballerinas, and ceramic dolphins are made-over with weapons, army fatigues, gas masks and plenty of blood.

She clearly has a ball throughout the entire process, right up to naming her creations. The works displayed here are titled (from the top): "(Saint) Sebastian was feeling really Blue (Boy)", "Hiroshi and his Friends are Having a Whale of a Time #3", "APEX circa 1974", ""If Only Gay Sex Caused Global Warming" Mused Mother Earth" and "Its Murder on the Dance Floor #5".

Viewers are suckered in by the cuteness of the found objects and are prompted to laugh when they find what she has cheekily done with them. I am always intrigued by ideas of tastelessness and contextuality and enjoyed seeing her approach to the shock of the familiar, as opposed to the shock of the new.

Byrne still works conserving priceless ceramics and decorative arts for museums and galleries, but spends a lot of time op-shopping for objects to play with, and deconstructing them in her studio. She’s also trained as a lawyer and has retained a passion for human rights advocacy. Art gives her the opportunity to express herself in ways a lawyer is not necessarily able to do, she says.

Exhibition on until March 25