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The former landlady of a quaint Cornish pub took on an unusual hobby after retiring, creating surrealist sculptures of "torturous" faces - using real human teeth.

From heads within heads with dolls arms and legs breaking out from them, to twisted forms with genitalia and parts of animals, pensioner Jacqui James' artwork is somewhat shocking.

So shocking in fact that during a past exhibition in France, Jacqui's pieces reportedly left pupils from a local school visit in tears.

(Image: Cosmic)

She said: "Some people are horrified when they see it.

"Some of my friends won't go into my studio at all because they think it's too creepy and I'm not even allowed any of my work in the house.

"I had an exhibition in France once. The schools all come around to the galleries with the children and when they saw it, the children started crying and had to leave. The exhibition had to be taken down."

The 70-year-old creates each one-off piece by hand using standard ceramic clay combined with more unusual ingredients, including real and false teeth.

Jacqui was collecting the teeth from a local dentist, but said that she has now been told she will no longer be able to because of "health and safety reasons".

"My inspiration is just life, I just get the clay and make things, I don't think about what I want it to look like after, it just happens," added Jacqui.

"I have tried to make nice things, but they always just come out a bit weird."

Before discovering her talents with ceramics, Jacqui had a number of different occupations, including being a trained nurse, working for 28 years as a councillor and running The Highwayman Inn in Dobwalls, near Liskeard.

She said: "I used to run the Highwayman when I was in my 20s. We had it for years, I used to do all of the lovely cooking, we really enjoyed it."

Jacqui, who now lives in Bexhill-on-Sea in Sussex, has recently joined forces with Cornish artist Cosmic who has agreed to represent her, helping to create new exhibitions to showcase her macabre work.

Cosmic said: "We're definitely going to arrange some exhibitions we just need to find the right gallery.

"My mum lives across the road, Jacqui saw my van and came over to talk to me, that's how we met.

"She invited me into her studio and I couldn't believe what I saw. It's like Aladin's Cave!

"It's an organic version of the Chapman brothers, or Francis Bacon's paintings, almost like you can hear them screaming at you.

"It's the closest thing I've found that's actually real, straight from the pysche."

St Agnes based Cosmic, who is well-known across the county for his contemporary street murals as well as books, prints and commissions, said that meeting Jacqui has helped him to "feel inspired".

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"There's so much to each piece, so much detail," he said.

"The more you look the more you see. There's a head with a tongue sticking out, if you look closer there could be a baby on the tongue and if you look closer still there's a plant coming out of it's chest.

"It is torturous, but it's also comforting, it's pain externalised."