Walt Disney’s prodigal son – a childhood friend of millions- lies dead on a cold tile floor.

The 30-foot-long inflatable Mickey Mouse, with blood trickling out his mouth to create a crimson puddle in the shape of America, is dressed in camouflage and extending his white-gloved hand palm up to allegorize the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

This piece was done by sculptor Billie Grace Lynn and is just one example of the eccentric artwork featured in ATHICA’s fall exhibit, “Animal Instincts: Allegory and Anthropomorphism.” The exhibit focuses on the conceptual relations between humans and animals.

“ATHICA’s [Athens Institute for Contem-porary Art] mission is to provide a home for artists whose art doesn’t find a commercial niche but deserves to be seen,” said Lizzie Zucker Saltz, the local institute’s founder and director.

ATHICA exhibits always have been politically or socially engaged, adventurous and provocative. The gallery is non-profit, thrives on donations from the public and is entirely run by volunteers.

Curator Melissa Link said most of the art in the show isn’t something one may expect to see in a typical living room.

The exhibit features local artists such as Matt Blanks, Jill Carnes, Andrew Cayce, Joe Havesy, Rosemary Mendecino, Dan Smith, Beth Thompson, Jeffrey Whittle and Kenny Aguar, an alumnus from the University who also is known to perform at the 40 Watt Club as the “8-Track Gorilla.” Other featured artists either submitted their work or were discovered via the Internet.

Link said she read about artist Jessica May in an article on Yahoo.com regarding car passengers in Indiana confusing May’s artwork for dead bodies on the highway.

May would dress up road-kill in human clothing, oftentimes giving the animals features like painted nails, and would take pictures of them from unusual angles.

“Once you put clothes on [the animals], they suddenly become people,” Link said about May’s pieces. “Suddenly their life starts to have worth.”

Another attention-grabbing piece is a black and white vinyl decal that takes up about one fourth of ATHICA’s left wall. The oversized silhouette compares flying bugs and birds to cosmonauts, rockets, planes and missiles. Link said she thinks the piece shows us how animals and insects represent worldly things that both hurt us and make us stronger.

Dan Smith, an Athens artist and high-school art teacher, will present cartoons that may be seen as cheerful on their surface level but in fact have a much deeper meaning.

“They all seem to have some kind of identity issue,” said Link about Smith’s works, one of which is titled “I am not a unicorn, I am not a narwhal, I am not a rhinoceros, for I am not a hero .”

A number of artists touched on themes such as domestic violence, psycho-sexual projection, mutation and war. Link said she thought more artists would target the topic of animal rights, adding that the topic will be mentioned more during the institute’s closing panel discussion on “Contemporary Issues in Human-Animal Relations,” to be held on Nov. 11.